Institute for Democracy and Cooperation
The Institute for Democracy and Cooperation ( Russian Институт демократии и сотрудничества ) is a think tank organized as a foundation . It was established in Moscow in November 2007 and claims to monitor the human rights situation in the United States and the EU . The founder and director is the lawyer Anatoly Grigoryevich Kucherena .
Origin and purpose
At a summit meeting with the EU in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a Russian institute that would monitor western democracies in the future. He was responding to the continuous criticism of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of the human rights situation in Russia and of its authoritarian course. Putin's government attributed this criticism to a strategy of Western governments, which tried to damage Russia and bring about an overthrow with apparently independent NGOs. He accused the NGOs, especially the US Freedom House Foundation , of meddling in Russia's internal affairs and dependence on government funding. In return, the Russian institute was supposed to shed light on democracy deficits and human rights violations in the USA and other Western countries. Representatives of Human Rights Watch expected that the Institute had to choose between Russian state propaganda and serious human rights work. In the latter case it has to assert itself against strong competition from Western human rights groups.
The foundation happened in November 2007 in Moscow. In February 2008, representatives of the institute traveled to Paris and New York City to set up external offices there. Natalija Alexejewna Narotschnitskaja heads the branch in Paris, Andranik Migranyan heads the office in New York. According to her, the Paris office should also monitor the situation of national minorities in EU countries, such as that of the Russians in Latvia . The New York office is also said to oppose unilateral information about Russia.
financing
According to Kutscherena's statements, the institute is financed by donations and does not receive any state funding. It is a pure citizens' initiative that relies on the support of Russian entrepreneurs. Since many companies in Russia are state or heavily dependent on the state, the independence of the institute from the Russian government was questioned from the start. According to the Russia correspondent Boris Reitschuster , the institute and its Russian speakers are financed from Russia.
Compact conferences
Since 2012 the institute has been organizing the “sovereignty conferences” of the ideological and right-wing extremist cross - front magazine Compact . Its editor Jürgen Elsässer organizes the conferences, and he and the institute representatives select the speakers. There they propagate anti-Americanism and Eurasism in agreement with Putin, Russian nationalists and right - wing extremists .
Elsässer has been striving for a political "Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis" against NATO , against the EU and the integration of Germany into the euro zone for a long time and works with the institute, Russian state media such as RT Deutsch , the neo-fascist and leader of the International Eurasian Movement Alexander Dugin and right-wing populists in Europe such as Nigel Farage , Heinz-Christian Strache , Marine Le Pen and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party .
At the first conference on November 24, 2012 in Berlin, the organizers also worked with the state-funded international broadcaster Russia Today . At the second conference in Leipzig , Thilo Sarrazin , several family politicians in the Duma and anti-homosexual opponents of marriage appeared for everyone . The racist blog Politically Incorrect and the right- wing magazine Junge Freiheit promoted the conference. In a greeting, Natalia Narotchnitskaya described the “ideology of human rights” as the new communist manifesto and totalitarianism of the modern age. She equated liberalism with Marxism and portrayed the Russian conservatives as “defenders of freedom”. The AfD spokeswoman Frauke Petry , who was also invited, canceled at short notice. The event was subtitled “Are Europe's Peoples Abolished?” And aroused significant protests from the LGBTQ community.
At the 2013 conference in Paris, Elsässer's media partner at the time, Ken Jebsen , the right-wing Russian Duma member Jelena Misulina , the nationalist historian Natalja Narotchnitskaja and the British publicist and Putin supporter John Laughland appeared. Representatives of the Russian foreign broadcaster Voice of Russia were also invited . He reported positively on the conference and interviewed Elsässer several times. Misulina wrote the highly controversial Russian law against "gay propaganda". Natalja Narotchnitskaja appeared as a fighter against the alleged "sexual re-education" of children and the alleged erosion of moral values.
Because the institute was not very successful with its line of proving the West's failings in terms of freedom of the press or freedom of expression, the Center for Strategic Communication in Moscow drew up a new propaganda concept from December 2013. Putin has now been portrayed as the global leader of the Conservatives against a supposedly morally depraved West. After the incorporation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian government intensified its cooperation with European right-wing populists, including through high financial loans from banks close to the Kremlin, contacts with top representatives of the AfD and continued cooperation with Jürgen Elsässer. Its further cooperation with the institute in turn serves to network EU and America-critical rights in Europe. At the Compact conference under the title "Peace with Russia" on 22./23. November 2014 also Vladimir Yakunin , a close confidante of Putin. AfD representative Alexander Gauland was one of the guests .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Benjamin Bidder: Russian PR offensive: Kremlin loyalty fight for human rights - abroad. Spiegel Online, February 5, 2008
- ↑ Heike Kleffner, Matthias Meisner: Under Saxony: Between anger and welcome. Christoph Links, Berlin 2017, ISBN 3861539373 , p. 98
- ↑ a b Thomas Korn, Andreas Umland: Jürgen Elsässer, Kremlpropagandist. Die Zeit , July 19, 2014
- ↑ Compact: With Sarrazin against marriage for everyone. Publikative.org , November 24, 2013
- ^ Annette Langer: "Compact" conference: Krude theses at homophobic event. Spiegel Online, November 23, 2013
- ↑ Helmut Ortner: Resistance is futile. But it makes sense. Self-defense notes from the home front. Nomen Verlag, 2015, ISBN 3-939816-27-2 , p. 145
- ↑ Katja Gloge: Putin's World: The New Russia, Ukraine and the West. Piper, Munich 2017, ISBN 3-492-31040-0 , p. 73
- ^ Benjamin Bidder, Philipp Wittrock: Putin and the Populists: The right network of the Kremlin. Spiegel Online, November 24, 2014