MOSCOW Russia moved Wednesday to impose greater government control over charities and other nongovernmental organizations, including some of the world's most prominent, in what critics described as the Kremlin's latest effort to stifle civil society and democracy.
The lower house of Parliament gave preliminary approval to legislation that would require tens of thousands of Russian organizations to register with the Ministry of Justice, impose restrictions on their ability to accept donations or hire foreigners and prohibit foreign organizations from opening branches in Russia.
The legislation could yet be significantly revised, but if it is approved as now written it would force organizations like the Ford Foundation, Greenpeace and Amnesty International to close their offices in Russia and re-register instead as purely Russian organizations - something the legislation, in an apparent contradiction, appears to disallow.
President Vladimir Putin has long faced criticism for strengthening his political authority, despite his avowals of commitment to democracy, and the legislation prompted still more.
"This is the last sector of civil society that has not fallen under government control," Aleksandr Petrov, deputy director in Moscow for the international group Human Rights Watch, said at a news conference held Tuesday in the hope of persuading the Parliament to reject or at least amend the legislation.
Some of the bill's supporters defended it as an effort to bring order to the registration of 450,000 nongovernmental organizations. But others said it was aimed at preventing foreign efforts to support political opposition movements, like the one that swept to power in Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" last fall. The legislation follows sharply worded remarks by Putin and the director of the Federal Security Service, the successor of the Soviet-era KGB, that foreign organizations often undermine Russian interests. And it follows the prosecutions of individual organizations, including the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a group funded from America and Europe that the government has accused of extremism and that it has moved to close.
"Let us resolve the internal political problems of Russia ourselves," Putin said during the summer, criticizing nongovernmental organizations involved in what he called political activities.
The director of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, went even further earlier this year. He accused Western organizations, including the Peace Corps and the British medical charity Merlin, of being fronts for espionage.
"Under the cover of implementing humanitarian and educational programs in Russian regions, they lobby for the interests of certain countries and gather classified information on a wide range of issues," Patrushev told members of Parliament in May.
His remarks prompted unusually strong public rebukes from the United States and Britain, but the legislation he called for then became the basis for what the Parliament endorsed Wednesday.
The Parliament adopted the measure by an overwhelming margin, with 370 voting in favor and only 18 against. Three deputies abstained, while 56 did not vote. The Parliament took the action despite an outpouring of criticism, at home and abroad, when the bill appeared on the agenda, bypassing the usual committee processes.
President George W. Bush raised the subject during his meeting last week with Putin, though neither the Kremlin nor the White House disclosed details.
Senator John Edwards and Jack Kemp, a former vice presidential candidate for the Republicans, who together are overseeing a task force on American policy toward Russia issues for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote to Bush last week, urging him to protest "in the frankest possible terms."
"It would roll back pluralism in Russia and curtail contact between our societies," they wrote.
Under Russia's legislative process, any bill must pass three "readings," or votes. Amendments are often introduced between the first and the second, which is scheduled for Dec. 9. Such is the state of Russian politics that some legislators have already suggested that the bill voted on Wednesday would face revision.
Sergei Mironov, chairman of the upper house, which must also approve the legislation if it is to become law, said there was justification for restricting foreign influence on Russian organizations and political activities, but added that the bill needed revisions.
"It is important not to throw out the baby together with the bath water," he said in an interview in his office.
Steven Solnik, the representative for the Ford Foundation, said in a telephone interview after the vote that he remained hopeful that the restrictions on foreign organizations would be lifted. The foundation, he said, distributed about $10 million a year in grants, mostly to Russian organizations and government institutions in a variety of fields, including education, AIDS and the arts.
Even if the restrictions on foreigners are removed, the main components affecting Russian organizations are likely to remain. Leaders of some of those organizations said the legislation would subject them to constant scrutiny by officials, who would have new powers to demand documents at any time proving they were not engaged in political activity or other work not specifically allowed in their own charters.
"I think the whole bill is a misguided attempt to bring order, in their minds," to a nongovernmental sector "that doesn't need to be put in order, but rather developed," Solnik said. "It needs a cooperative, mutually trusting environment with the government, and not a new law to put it under intrusive government control."
C.J. Chivers contributed reporting from Moscow.
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