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Human Rights door closed

Behind this door in an office building in Murmansk should the Norwegian Helsinki Committee been working with Human Right issues. But, not so. The door is closed since the group is not allowed to be registered and operate in Murmansk.

Location

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee have for years been working with different human rights education programs in the Barents Region. They have arranged several human rights seminar and courses for hundreds of participants. On their web-site you can read the reports from the conferences, like the one they arranged in 2007 with regional participants from both northern Norway and Northwest Russia.

In order to continue their work the Helsinki Committee wanted to open their own office in Murmansk with a local employee.

- I am sorry to say, but we have closed our office in Murmansk because Russian authorities have refused registration of the office, says Director of Human Rights Education Enver  Djuliman at the Oslo office of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

All nongovernmental organizations in Russia need proper registration in order to operate within the law.

NGO law
The law, introduced by President Vladimir Putin in 2006 restrict the ability of Russian nongovernmental organizations to accept foreign grants or employ foreigners. Foreign NGOs are also partly denied to open offices in Russia if not approved by the Justice Ministry in the location of the office where the group want to open an office.

In June this year, BarentsObserver reported that President Dmitri Medvedev introduced a re-written text to the law on Russian NGOs. The legislation had more relaxed restrictions on the civic groups than the legislations introduced by former president Vladimir Putin in 2006 aimed to restrict their activities.

But the door to the Helsinki Committee’s office in Murmansk is still closed and the group’s work in the Murmansk region may continue to be problematic. 

Norwegians in trouble
Last December, two Norwegians working for the Helsinki Committee were fined 2000 rubles for violating Russian visa regulations. The two, General Secretary Bjørn Engesland and Enver Djuliman, Director of Human Rights Education, said afterwards they feared the action appended to the pattern of Russian authorities’ ongoing efforts to prevent human right groups from working in Russia.

Djuliman was again detained in March this year and fined by Russian migration authorities, due to technicality mistakes in his visas.

-We have operated in full transparency with the Russian authorities about our programs. Over the last year, our employees have had increasing problems getting visas to Russia. This time we went through an extensive process with the Russian Embassy in Oslo to get the formalities done, Engesland said after last Decembers incident in Murmansk.

Court overturned penalty
In March this year the Norwegian Helsinki Committee filed a complaint with the Pervomaysk district court in Murmansk.  In May the court ruled to overturn the administrative penalty brought against Engesland and Djuliman for allegedly violating the visa rules.

The first Helsinki Committee was established in Moscow in 1976. The primary concern of the “Moscow Helsinki Group” was to monitor and report on the Soviet Union’s implementation of the Helsinki Declaration.  The “Helsinki Declaration” was one of the first international agreements that linked issues concerning peace and security with respect for human rights.