UK Support for Human Rights Groups Adds to Tensions

Russian non-governmental organisations yesterday expressed concern that spying allegations made against Britain were being used to justify a crackdown against their groups in an attempt to stifle dissent.

Moscow says western agencies funded NGOs that helped instigate the Ukrainian revolution - and it does not want a repeat in Russia itself. The funding by Britain of human rights and democracy groups in Russia is a source of tension between the two countries.

The Foreign Office insisted there is nothing improper in its support of civil society groups. But the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed yesterday that the Eurasia Foundation, a media support group, and the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights group, received grants - of £5,719 and £23,000 respectively - from Marc Doe, one of the British embassy staff accused of being a member of a spy ring.

Ludmila Alexeyevna, 79, a veteran human rights campaigner and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said Mr Doe had not signed off the grant for her, but another diplomat had.

"This is designed to slander the Moscow Helsinki Group", she said, adding that the row over discovery of the fake rock was also aimed at broadly discrediting NGOs and justifying a new law signed on January 10 by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, that places new restrictions on them.

Mr Doe, is second political secretary in charge of the Foreign Office's Global Opportunities Fund, which gives grants to civil society groups. He was named by the FSB as the main recruiter of Russians to act as agents.

His signature was shown on state television in documents awarding the grants to the two NGOs. One of these was to be paid in cash to fund a Siberian schools inspection programme, which the documentary claimed was particularly suspicious.

Nikolai Zakharov, deputy spokesman for the FSB, said the posting of a spy in such a position showed the "shortsightedness and cynicism of the special services. Here the work of such civil society groups is compromised because an intelligence officer is communicating with them and sending them money."

Interfax quoted the FSB saying that the key groups funded by Mr Doe were the Committee against Torture, the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, the Eurasia Foundation, the Moscow Helsinki Group and Penal Reform International.