What was Open Russia about before they cooked up charges against it? (Press-Centre survey)

At the end of last year, it became known that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was suspected of money-laundering, with investigators pointing the finger at Open Russia as the main conduit. The Press Centre asked a number of people with first-hand experience of Open Russia whether they understood what this justiciary signal means. Here are their answers:

Aleksey Simonov, President of the Foundation for the Protection of Glasnost

No, the signal is unreadable. Because nothing I know about Open Russia from my long and variegated work with it suggests for a moment the possibility of any money-laundering. In fact, everything I know it attests to precisely the opposite - spending money constructively on bettering the country.

Could Open Russia’s partners suffer? Everything is possible in our country, even an espionage scandal coming out of the blue. Although I can’t see what they could possibly be charged with, I wouldn’t exclude anything, since I with our wonderful state, whose main characteristic is a future as unpredictable as the past.

Natalia Taubina, Director of the Public Verdict Foundation

On the one hand, yes, the signal is clear. On the other hand, what isn’t clear is how far the process may go. Attempts to pronounce Open Russia a conduit for money-laundering fit precisely into the general tendency of recent times, in which public organizations are said to be working under someone’s orders, and people involved in activities promoting the public good are said to be agents of the organizations that finance them. All this serves to marginalize independent civil society.

Now this spurious definition seems to have been applied to the relationship between Open Russia and its Chairman of the Board, Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky. To talk about future trends, though, I assume that pressure will now be felt by those organizations which received targeted financing from Open Russia for particular projects.

Arseny Roginsky, Chairman of the Board of the Memorial Rights Protection Centre

In my view, they have no idea themselves what they’re doing. It’s all madness. In any case, no new slander or new libel - or new just plain foolishness - will shake our (my and Memorial’s) respect for Open Russia and my deep sympathy towards Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky - who, I hope, will finally, whatever happens, get back his freedom.

Nina Zvereva, director of the Praktika Training Centre for regional TV companies in Nizhni Novgorod

I received two grants from Open Russia for one of the best projects I’ve ever in my life been involved in. We put together with regional companies from all over the country a hundred films called Gifted Children of Russia, which were shown on Federal channels and fifty regional stations. We documented a hundred different gifted children, which would have been impossible but for the Open Russia grant; and afterwards we organized a talk-show with these children called The Freedom of Speech Factory, fronted by Savik Shuster. We talked about politics, elections, Putin - everything - with gifted children from all over the country. I can verify that the accounting was absolutely transparent, the money was received on time and the cost-sheets were all checked. The second project, unfortunately, was produced in an atmosphere of tension involving Khodorkovsky and we were visited by an enormous number of tax officers. But we checked every penny - and there were no claims.

Manana Aslamazyan, CEO of Internews, an international nonprofit organization supporting independent media

The message is clear. It’s an extension of the idea which has recently permeated across society that non-profit organizations are either tools in the hands of unscrupulous foreigners or conduits for laundering money. To me, money-laundering means that money spent by someone on charity comes back to him in some way, exempting him from taxes and so on. I, on the other hand, have to say that every penny we received from Open Russia over a two-year period was spent on good causes, for the good of the Motherland. The projects were without exception transparent. The money was spent legally, and there was absolutely no money-laundering, kickbacks or any other dodginess involved. I’m familiar with all Open Russia’s projects, both in the regions and in Moscow. I know that they have always been completely clear, practical and useful - useful for Russia, for Russia’s citizens and for its teachers and journalists. Which is why I simply can’t see Open Russia as some sort of money-laundering tool. As far as our own money from Open Russia is concerned, we went through a vast number of tax-audits - and they found nothing amiss. Could they come back? I don’t know. If they did, wanting to find something, they could easily turn me into someone with dirty hands. Because the spending of money by non-profit organizations involves a lot of extra requirements. And here, unfortunately, it’s always possible to find money being used for something other than its targets. Let’s imagine that money allocated to a library for the purchase of new books is spent, says, on CDs - electronic books. In fact you can accuse virtually any Russian organization of this sort of non-targeted spending of money.

Irina Mikhnova, president of the Interregional Association of Business Libraries

In our case, involving libraries, we went through three different arbitration courts. It had nothing, of course, to do with money-laundering. But I think along these lines. We organized model village libraries over a three-year period. Financing was provided by Open Russia in accordance with the agreement on donations, and the tax inspectorate checked us for three years running. But then, in mid-2005, we faced claims that the money hadn’t been directed in the correct way. It was ruled that we hadn’t paid income-tax and a bill was drawn up for over two million rubles. We’d had a preliminary arbitration-hearing in December the previous year, when we’d proved that the money had been given as a grant. Our arguments had been sound - and we’d won. We were told at the time that we were the first non-profit organization to have undergone a probe of this kind. But then the other side challenged the ruling - and we had to go back to court twice more, to two different courts. By spring 2006 it was all over; we had won. We had very serious arguments. The donations had clearly been completely transparent, since Open Russia had determinedly tracked down the movement and use of the money - and everything was absolutely clear. Thanks to the money from Open Russia, we opened seventy-eight libraries in thirteen territories. We remain very grateful to Mikhail Borisovich - as do the libraries.

Lyudmila Alexeeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group

The signal sent is quite plain. This is another attack on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, another attack on wayward non-profit organizations which dare to say what they think about the administration. It’s a pre-election clean-up. There’ll be investigations and so on - and of course something special ‘concocted’ for Open Russia.

Anatoly Ermolin, deputy chairman of the Open Russia board

The message sent is, of course, clear. We’ve been expecting it for a long time - though we hoped it wouldn’t come. I don’t think it’s directly aimed at the elimination of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. We have now frozen virtually all our activities, and we’re not doing anything at all in the socio-political area. It’s not, in fact, what we were set up to do. As more and more claims come in, we defend ourselves passively, on the basis of the law. The powers-that-be who set this thing off understand that we don’t represent any sort of serious socio-political force. Our people in the regions are civically- and not politically-oriented, which is why they all rely on their own resources.. This is most probably another PR-campaign, a murky PR campaign. The target is Mikhail Khodorkovsky and we are part of the fall-out.