Labor Migrant Support Center Labeled a ‘Foreign Agent’

The Moscow-based Migration and Law Integration Center is the latest addition to Russia’s ever-growing list of “foreign agents.” The center, formerly known as the Tajikistan Foundation, was founded in 1996 to support and assist migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia. In 2012, under new Russian laws, the center registered with the Justice Ministry but it was not designated a “foreign agent” until recently.

“We come out for change of not political but migration situation. We do not interfere in politics and we are not opposed to states with whose migrants we work,” Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, the center’s head said in an interview with National Accent. “The Justice Ministry’s decision must be upheld by a court… We are not going to dispute any decision. We will be summoned to a court and we will make our arguments there.”

It’s not entirely clear what prompted the center’s reclassification. In her comments, Dzhurayeva noted that the center has had to take foreign grants in order to operate as it has not received a presidential grant from the Russian government. In 2012, the organization launched a year-long hotline service project to provide free legal advice to migrant workers in collaboration with the Eurasia Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on administering grants to strengthen civil society across Eurasia. Earlier, in 2002, the center had accepted a grant from the Open Society Institute to open a similar hotline service for migrant workers.

Russia’s 2012 “foreign agents” law mandates that nongovernmental organizations which accept foreign funding and are engaged in “political activity” register as “foreign agents” or be subject to hefty fines and possible closure. “Political activity” is loosely defined in the law, and the label “foreign agent” carries with it the weight of history: the term is regionally viewed as a euphemism for “spies” or “traitors.” The 2012 law requires organizations registered as “foreign agents” to make the designation clear in all publications and statements, and curtails options for tax-exempt donations. Amendments to the law made in 2014 allow the Justice Ministry to register organizations as “foreign agents” without their consent if the ministry believes they are engaged in “political activity.”

A Justice Ministry report obtained by Vedomosti, a Russian business daily newspaper, included criticism of the “foreign agents” law as “political activity,” along with “activities aimed at discrediting domestic and foreign policy,” criticism of the country’s leadership decisions, and criticism of legislation. This loose definition--and the ability to manipulate that fluidity--is the core critique of Western human rights organizations. “The definition of ‘political activity’ under the law is so broad and vague that it can extend to all aspects of advocacy and human rights work,” a recent Human Rights Watch dispatch said.

Dzhurayeva, the head of the Migration and Law center, is often quoted in foreign media in relation to not-entirely-uncommon flashes of violence and xenophobia in Russia. Migrant workers--especially those from Central Asia--are frequently scapegoated and marginalized, associated with crime and radicalization. For example, a spate of murders and assaults of migrant workers in 2008 gained considerable attention.

“People are living in fear," Dzhurayeva told the Washington Post at the time. The article went on to detail the violence:

From January through March, 49 people have been killed in assaults by radical nationalists, 28 of them in the greater Moscow area, according to the Moscow Human Rights Bureau. There were 27 racist killings in Moscow in 2006 and 45 in 2007, according to the group. Most of the killings remain unsolved.

In more recent news, when three people were killed during fighting between Tajik workers and Chechens at a Moscow cemetery--ostensibly the fight was over access to work in the cemetery--Dzhurayeva said media and politicians were quick to peg the violence on migrants. “They are the victims," she said, warning of xenophobia. In Russia’s dour economic climate, competition for work is high and tensions between migrant workers (both legal and illegal) and Russian citizens have risen.

Dzhurayeva’s organization provided much-needed support to a vulnerable community. More than the “foreign agents” designation, though, the fines are most likely to heavily curtail, if not close, the center. According to Human Rights Watch, groups which fail to register as a “foreign agent” can be fined up to 500,000 rubles (over US$16,000), and their leaders fined up to 300,000 rubles (approximately $10,000) personally.

In the National Accent interview, Dzhurayeva didn’t criticize the law that may ultimately shut her organization down. She said that the government should know when organizations were taking foreign money, but that not all which do take foreign grant money should be categorized as “foreign agents.”

As Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently points out when questioned about Russia’s stringent “foreign agent” law, other countries have similar legal structures. But the devil is in the details. In the United States the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is the comparable piece of law. But FARA was amended in 1966 to change focus from targeting Nazi propaganda (the law’s original intent) to political lobbying, and narrowed its definition of a “foreign agent,” distinctly increasing the burden of proof needed before the Justice Department could use the label. An organization or person can only be listed as a “foreign agent” in the United States if the government can prove that organization acts “at the order, request, or under direction or control of a foreign principal” and was engaged in “political activities for or in the interest of such a foreign principal.” The key in the U.S. law is the question of whether an organization is acting to further the interests of a foreign entity at that entity’s behest.

Dzhurayeva’s center may offer some critique of the Russian state’s policies, but its primary purpose is support of a vulnerable community. Moscow, unfortunately, may see that as a political act rather than a humanitarian one--thus the designation.