20 November 2015 / By Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty

The OSCE’s representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, has deplored the decision of Russian authorities to label the nongovernmental organization Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF) as a “foreign agent.”

In a November 20 statement, Mijatovic said GDF had been “working tirelessly to protect and advocate for the rights of journalists in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States region” over the past 25 years.

She described the November 19 decision to include GDF in the register of “foreign agents” as a “serious obstruction to the important work media NGOs carry out and a threat to media pluralism in the Russian Federation.”

A law adopted in 2012 requires any NGO that receives funding from abroad and engages in political activity to register as a “foreign agent.”

Amendments introduced to the law last year allow the Justice Ministry to forcefully add NGOs to the list of “foreign agents.”