Hounded

In the New York Times, a report on the hounding by Russian authorities of a small NGO - the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship - devoted to human rights work in Chechnya:

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia - The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a small human-rights organization sponsored by American taxpayers, is a rare, independent source of information about this country's war in Chechnya. The authorities here are hounding it out of existence.

The [Russian] federal tax service accused the nonprofit society of evading taxes, though its financing from foreign grants is supposed to be tax-free, and billed it for $35,000 in back taxes and fines. In late August, the service froze the organization's bank accounts. The Justice Ministry has scheduled a hearing in late September to nullify its registration on the ground that by law it cannot use "Russian" in its name.

On Sept. 2, the society's director, Stanislav M. Dmitriyevsky, was charged with inciting ethnic and religious animosity by publishing commentaries by two Chechen separatist leaders in the group's newspaper more than a year and a half ago.

One passage cited as evidence in the indictment said, "So far it is not too late to come to an understanding, but for that the Russian people should get rid of those for whom peace means the loss of power."

Russia has long been wary of organizations that highlight the kidnappings and killings that blight Chechnya, but the fate of the society has repercussions that reach far beyond this city on the Volga River, where it has offices, threatening foreign support for groups like it and confronting the United States with a diplomatic quandary.

President Vladimir V. Putin warned this summer that Russia would not tolerate "foreign financing of political activities" by private organizations.

The legal assault here appears to be the first to make good on that threat, which echoed one he made a year earlier.

Putin did not single out the society or the United States, but the State Department, through the National Endowment for Democracy, has given the group $170,000 since 2001 - money that was not supposed to be taxed under a 1992 agreement between the United States and Russia, but is now part of the tax-evasion case.

Officials in the U.S. Embassy and at the State Department declined to discuss the matter for the record. But John E. Squire, who oversees grants to Russia and Ukraine for the National Endowment for Democracy, said he feared this would not be an isolated case.

"The range of stuff you can do in criticizing the government is getting more and more narrow," he said in a telephone interview from Washington.

Dmitriyevsky, who remains free pending trial but is under orders not to leave Nizhny Novgorod, said the authorities were bent on stifling organizations like his, just as Putin's government has reined in news organizations, businesses and the political opposition.

Officials here denied that the government actions had been coordinated.

Marco Masi at chechnya-sl points out that the group also receives money from the European Union.

There is an Urgent Appeal at the SRCF website.