MOSCOW: Russian authorities have refused to grant legal status to 40 foreign non-governmental organisations which submitted paperwork to the justice ministry under stringent new legislation that requires them to re-register by October 18.

Some Western NGOs have said the new law will force their closure. Alexander Zhyafrov, who heads the ministry’s section handling political, religious and civil groups, said his officials began re-registering foreign NGOs after the law came into effect on April 18. He said 40 NGOs had handed in documents but were told to work on them further. His office declined to comment further.

“The main reason was mistakes in connection with the negligent filling in of forms,” Mr Zhyafrov told Interfax, adding that some groups provided several names for themselves and unclear information about when they were founded. NGO representatives said the complaints were a bureaucratic way of closing groups that tampered with the Kremlin’s political dominance.

Alison Gill, director of Human Rights Watch’s Moscow office, said: “The regulations themselves are not transparent and involve such discretion that compliance is impossible if they [officials] want it to be.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service