Russian banks block donations to human rights organizations

"Human rights organizations still operating in Russia are being forced to shut down, despite having committed no crime, after the Kremlin found an extralegal path to cutting off their airflow. The NGOs are accusing banks linked in some way to the government of preventing them from accessing their main source of funding: donations from other Russians. Online pay platforms have yet to offer an explanation for terminating their services to the groups."

"OVD-Info faces a critical situation: we have lost all our ruble donations, states an SOS published by the defense organization for political prisoners and Russian protestors. Its spokesperson, Dmitri Anisimov, tells EL PAIS via telephone that this is the biggest blow the NGO has received in its 14 years of existence. Other organizations have encountered the same problem, like immigrant support NGO Grazhdanskoye Sodeistvie, while several others have been forced to close."

"Months prior, officials labeled the group a foreign agent, a designation that the Kremlin has now applied to the other NGOs mentioned in this article. Pressured by terminated access to pay platforms, as well as the fear generated in some of its donors by its foreign agent designation, the management of the group announced it was shutting down all activity because it was practically impossible to continue."

Russian human-rights NGOs designated as 'foreign agents' are losing access to domestic funding after banks and online payment platforms stopped processing donations. Organizations report ruble donations blocked, forcing urgent appeals and operational cutbacks. Some groups, including OVD-Info, Grazhdanskoye Sodeistvie, Nuzhna Pomosch and Nasiliu.net, have been forced to suspend activities or close. Pressure from payment-platform terminations, banking restrictions and donor fear over foreign-agent labels make continued operations practically impossible for many NGOs. CloudPayments warned of blocking transfers, prompting alternative measures that sometimes failed. The loss of domestic funding represents an extralegal method used to choke civil-society organizations.

Read at english.elpais.com