Foreign Agents in Russia - Doria

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transparent foreign agents, the NKOs were hidden in Russia. Although in the chapter 4.1.1. I argued
that the identification of foreign agents is more dependent on the political characters of their
activities than financing, the transparency discourses have more balanced pressure on both the
political activity and financing of NKOs.
In many of the cases where high officials such as the central members of the state duma (Ria
2012c) or prime minister Dmitry Medvedev (2012m) or president Vladimir Putin (Ria 2013f1)
legitimized the foreign agents the arguments were emphasizing the transparency of financing, often
not connecting the transparency to the political activities of NKOs per se. The bill initiative to
subjugate media organizations to foreign agent regulations was overruled in Duma mainly because
the media is already reporting their financing sources (Echo 2012h). In cases like this the foreign
agent discourses seem to produce transparency more in the foreign financing features of NKOs than
in their political actions. As a part of the amendments made to the law on NKOs, Russian banks are
obliged to automatically report all money transactions over 200,000 rubles (approximately 4 570
euros) from abroad to the officials of Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Ria 2013v.) The
obligation considers every foreign transaction over the defined amount of money regardless of the
receiver. In such ruling the desired function of the transparency in foreign financing appears to be
an indicator, not a violation of law per se but a signal demanding for more precise attention in
receiver's activities.
As I have earlier noted the NKOs have little denied their foreign funding as their more
popular issues with the foreign agent definitions have been in the recognition of the defining
political activities. The problems with the transparency of political activities are strongly linked to
the definition of political activities and the claiming of action as non-political has at times it has
been portrayed to be hidden as well. According to a report of the prosecutor, the human rights center
Memorial tried to hide that besides of using its resources to educational and historical purposes it
also had a mission to solve social and political problems by formation of public opinion in Russia
and influencing to authorities (2013g1). The case of Memorial is only one example of the NKOs the
prosecutors found covering their political activities. According to the competing discourses the
concept of foreign agent per se was seen to cause the operations of NKOs go underground because
otherwise it would disallow their work (2012n). While this is a more rare kind of a statement, it
describes how the fear of the foreign agent label positions NKOs to circumstances where they might
need to work illegally and hidden. If such statement does necessarily not describe existing reality, it
can function as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In paragraphs 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 I have noted how these
hidden political activities were described in different ways more or less transparent.
The possible foreign agents are reported to have been found in human rights organizations,
law offices, environmentalists, volunteers, festivals, research centers, even in presidential offices