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The Russian Prosecutor General's Office announced on Friday morning that it wanted to make undesirable on its territory the American think tank specializing in international affairs Atlantic Council. An "undesirable" status often used by Russian authorities to discredit critical NGOs and think tanks.
With our correspondent in Moscow, Paul Gogo
This qualification of "unwanted organization" opens the door to a possible ban of the American NGO on the Russian territory. Which in itself would not have much influence on its operation, but says a lot about the state of relations between Russians and Americans.
The judiciary considers that this NGO represents a threat to the foundations of the constitutional regime and the security of Russia.
This is of course, far from the first time that Russian justice makes such decisions. The chosen term is more often that of agent of the foreigner and aims at Russian-based or Russian-based NGOs which receive money from abroad.
For example, in the organizations affiliated with these statutes, the American magnate George Soros or the former exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
There is also the Muscovite NGO Memorial, which carries out impressive background work on the history of Stalinist repressions and on the murders carried out in recent years in Chechnya . She is also qualified as an agent from abroad.
As a consequence of this "unwanted organization" status, NGOs live under the watchful eye of the Kremlin and suffer numerous attacks in the federal media and sometimes by local authorities. One way like another, to silence dissenting voices in Russia.