Russian NGO forcibly evicted from Moscow office (For Human Rights)

The story about this should give those of you who believe the cold war is fully over a reason to pause and think. There seems to be a subtle and not-so subtle battle going on as in the 'alphabet agencies dirty tricks days of old'.

From Putin's point of view, these agencies are foreign funded and in his opinion they are there to cause dissent and hitherto unprecedented demonstrations to undermine his government

Many organizations have been raided to check compliance with a new law that requires all NGOs that receive foreign funding and engage in vaguely defined political activities to register as foreign agents, a term that carries Cold War connotations of spying. Putin has accused the U.S. State Department of funding Russian NGOs with the aim of undermining his government.

Lev Ponomaryov, 72, who heads For Human Rights, said he was beaten all over his body when security forces stormed the building at around 2 a.m. and dragged him out. Dozens of riot police had raided the office on Friday and ordered employees to leave, but they had refused.

Amnesty International said it sent a representative to Ponomaryov's office on Friday to observe the raid.

"In Russia, we have witnessed how authorities are using every trick in the box to stop human rights activists criticizing their policies," the group said in a statement. "The attempt to evict For Human Rights from publicly owned offices seems to be yet another attempt to block their important human rights work."

story here

This is an organization I had not heard of before, unless it really should be called the Moscow Bureau For Human Rights.

On the one hand, world leaders would have us believe all is cushy between countries, yet we see and read of such goings-on.

Does Putin have a point? There are over 500 NGOs registered in Russia and it would be naïve to suppose many of them have a single as opposed to a dual purpose for existing. What do you think?

Story now picked up by Reuters

and by Yahoo News