Russian Bill to Ease NGO Law Sent to Duma
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sent a bill to the State Duma to have the country's NGO law softened. However many groups believe the reforms do not go far enough.
Ludmila Alexeeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and an outspoken supporter of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said: "In a normal democratic state, civil society controls bureaucracy. But this law is based on the principle that bureaucracy controls civil society. This is perverse."
Meanwhile, The Moscow Times reports that Human Rights Watch has issued a report claiming that "Medvedev has done little to reverse the authoritarianism in this field that began growing under his predecessor, Vladimir Putin." Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, commented that: "He needs to make sure that the reform brings about real change."