ST. PETERSURG, January 19. /TASS/. The St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office has notified the information office of the Nordic Council of Ministers in the city that it must be registered as a foreign agent, an aide of the city’s prosecutor said on Monday.
The prosecutor’s aide Marina Nikolayeva told TASS that its foreign financing and indications of political activities were revealed when the nongovernmental organization was checked.
Under the law passed in the summer of 2012, NGOs engaged in political activities and financed from abroad must be registered by the Justice Ministry as foreign agents. They must indicate the status when publishing materials in the Internet and media, otherwise a fine is imposed.
Recently, the registration was voluntary, but in early June 2014, amendments were passed for the Justice Ministry to force such organizations to be registered as foreign agents.
The Nordic Council of Ministers, which was founded in 1971, is an official forum of intergovernmental cooperation of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden and the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Aland Islands. Russia joined the organization in 1995.
The council’s information office was opened in St. Petersburg the same year. It looks for partners for cooperation with northwestern Russia and coordinates joint projects. To spread information and establish contacts in the Barents region, contact centers were opened in Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, which are subordinate to the office in St. Petersburg.