The BBC has studied the draft law “On control over the activities of persons under foreign influence” submitted to the State Duma. We tell you what new bans and risks await “foreign agents” and persons associated with them in Russia.

The four current lists of “foreign agents” and the rules for each of them in four different laws will be abolished. Instead, a single register and uniform rules will appear. All people, legal entities, already recognized as “foreign agents” will automatically fall into the new register according to the general rules. It will be easier for the authorities to replenish it, and living in Russia with such a status will become even more difficult and dangerous.

The new law will for the first time specify who cannot be recognized as “foreign agents.” The list of untouchables includes state bodies and persons affiliated with them. This will allow the authorities to avoid public questions about why the media are not recognized as “foreign agents”, for example, the RT channel and the TASS agency, which officially receive foreign funding . It will also not be possible to recognize registered political parties and religious associations as “foreign agents”.

For those who can be recognized as “foreign agents”, the State Duma has prepared new prohibitions and restrictions on their rights. The law will include norms on “squealing” and the duty of the Ministry of Justice to check the denunciations of state bodies, parties and public associations, the Public Chamber, the media, citizens and organizations about those who, according to them, should be included in the register.

Now, in order to be included in the register, it is necessary to find foreign funding from a potential “foreign agent”. The “agents” themselves often find out about its presence only in court, and it turns out that the money came from unknown persons.

The new law simplifies the task of the Ministry of Justice, allowing to do without money transfers. Now an “agent” will recognize someone who has fallen under “foreign influence.”

Such influence will be considered any kind of assistance – for example, “scientific and technical” or “in another form”, as well as the provision of “influence” – “by coercion, persuasion or in other ways,” the bill says.

According to Galina Arapova, director of the Center for the Protection of Media Rights (she herself and the center are recognized as “foreign agents”), scientific and international communication, the study of foreign philosophers or analysts, membership in international organizations, studying in foreign universities, up to the inoculation of foreign vaccine or learning from a native speaker of a foreign language. As the lawyer notes, there is no exhaustive list of forms of foreign influence in the law, which opens the gate for limitless and unpredictable law enforcement.

The State Duma proposes to consider as a source of foreign influence not only foreign countries, organizations and foreigners, but also “persons authorized by them or intermediaries in Russia.”

Another criterion required for inclusion in the register will remain the same: it is political activity (this includes public appeals criticizing laws or opinion polls), the collection of military-technical information from the FSB list that is not related to state secrets, or the publication of publicly available information.

Individuals – “foreign agents” will now be required to report not only on their expenses, as required now, but also on foreign sources, the amount of funds received and bank accounts. “Foreign agents” will be banned from using the simplified taxation system.

Foreign sources will include intermediaries in obtaining funds and property – banks and credit organizations.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosfinmonitoring, the Federal Tax Service (FTS), Roskomnadzor and the Pension Fund will have the right to provide the Ministry of Justice with information to replenish the register of “foreign agents”.

According to Galina Arapova, all these norms jeopardize the protection of personal data, information about private life and banking secrecy.

In addition, for the first time, the Ministry of Justice will have the right to conduct scheduled and unscheduled inspections in relation not only to legal entities, but also to individuals. The department will be able to request and receive information about their financial and economic activities from public authorities and banks without a court sanction, although, for example, within the framework of operational-search activities, this is possible only by a court decision.

The law also gives the Ministry of Justice the right to send its representatives to participate in events held by a “foreign agent”. Theoretically, these could be planning meetings, meetings of the board of directors, meetings, and webinars, Arapova notes.

The law will also include norms on the duty of the Ministry of Justice to check the appeals of government bodies, parties and public associations, the Public Chamber, all-Russian media, citizens and organizations about persons who, according to their information, should be recognized as “foreign agents.”

The procedure for exercising state control over “foreign agents” will be determined by the government. On April 14, the government rejected the bill of the deputies of the New People faction, who proposed to form a register according to clearer criteria and only by a court decision.

Together with “foreign agents” the list will include persons affiliated with them – employees of NGOs and the media, members of associations, as well as heads and founders of all these organizations, including former ones.

In addition, the register may include those who received assistance from “foreign agents” – including through intermediaries.

Formally, the requirements for “agents” will not apply to affiliated persons, but it is obvious that the very fact of being included in the register becomes an additional tool of intimidation.

Legal entities previously established by “foreign agents” will also become full-fledged “agents”. This means that even an Orthodox parish, founded, according to the BBC, by one of the “foreign agents”, can be included in the register.

According to the new law, the Ministry of Justice can exclude a “foreign agent” a year after the rejection of “foreign influence” or the types of activities listed in the law. At the same time, in the case of re-inclusion in the register, it will be possible to achieve an exception no sooner than after three years.

Persons affiliated with a “foreign agent” may be deleted from the register if they are not connected with each other within two years.

The new law contains the only relief – a partial abolition of the obligation of “foreign agents” to mark publications that are not related to their activities with a message about their status. However, easing may eventually lead to a fine for the violation.

“I would not rule out that the photo of a cat may indicate a serious foreign political influence on readers. As they say, the authorized bodies will give a legal assessment in accordance with the law,” Sergey Markov, managing partner of the Markov and Madaminov law firm, sneers.

More important, in his opinion, is the ban on the dissemination of information among children. “We should expect an order from Roskomnadzor, by which it will oblige all foreign agents to put not only a “dice”, but also an 18+ sign, as well as amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses with fines for exerting a pernicious foreign agency influence on children,” says Markov.

The bill also lists other prohibitions for “agents” – they will not be able to teach and educate minors, as well as participate in advisory, deliberative and expert bodies created by the authorities, conduct independent anti-corruption expertise and public events. The latter contradicts Article 31 of the Constitution on freedom of assembly.

According to the bill, a “foreign agent” will not be entitled to receive state financial support. Formally, such support includes “maternity capital”, as well as other forms of assistance to poor and large families, the disabled, and so on. According to Galina Arapova, among the trustees of the Media Rights Protection Center there is a “foreign agent” who is disabled and unemployed.

In addition, the bill deprives legal entities recognized as “foreign agents” of the right to insure bank deposits and participate as a contractor in public procurement.

10 years ago, when the law on non-commercial organizations-“foreign agents” appeared in Russia, the authorities declared that such organizations, if they refused foreign funding, would be able to apply for state funding in the form of grants. Now, in fact, they are being pushed to close – given that private players in Russia are unlikely to risk contacting a “foreign agent.”

Sergei Markov notes that the draft law proposes to oblige everyone who is going to “work as a foreign agent” in Russia to apply for the status on their own. “Those who do not submit it themselves are offered to “catch” the Ministry of Justice. Probably, they will also change the corresponding article of the Criminal Code with punishment for evading registration by a foreign agent,” says Markov.

“The bill is radically different from the first law on “foreign agents” of 2012. Then the goal was to stigmatize, and now it is to destroy civil society, and just active caring people,” lawyer Grigory Vaypan comments on the innovations.

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