The State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament, issued a statement
accusing the United States of interfering in Russian domestic politics through
its human rights report, Russian news agencies reported yesterday.
"The State Duma is concerned by unprecedented attempts by the United States
to interfere in internal political processes in Russia" through a report
"supporting human rights and democracy worldwide" issued on April 6 by the U.S.
Department of State, the statement said.
"Under the disguise of assisting free and fair elections to the State Duma in
December 2007 and the Russian presidential elections in March 2008, U.S.
taxpayers' money is being spent on training, polls, seminars, and other events
which spread propaganda and biased evaluations misinterpreting Russian law, such
as the one on nonprofit organizations," it said.
The Duma draft said "U.S. officials are taking part in the events, some of
which are organized by clearly extremist forces. This is how the White House is
trying to pursue its economic and political interests by interfering in other
countries' internal affairs."
The financing of nonprofit organizations by foreign countries for political
purposes is unacceptable, however, "this activity is practiced by the U.S.
government," it said.
In the statement, the Russian parliament said that the U.S. interference in
the internal affairs of other countries "is increasingly disapproved of, not
only outside the United States, but also by US society itself."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the US
State Department report on human rights and democracy is politicized in nature.
"The section of the document dealing with Russia applies a whole arsenal of
simple logical methods -- exaggeration, selection of facts to support
conclusions formulated in advance, the substitution of notions, arbitrary
interpretation of facts and some others to convince the U.S. and international
public that Russia urgently needs democratization," the statement said.