An April law imposed more stringent and complicated financial reporting and registration requirements for NGOs, adding fuel to criticism from rights organizations and Western governments that Russia is backsliding on civil rights and freedoms.
A ministry official said, "A hundred and eight foreign NGOs have been put on the register to date." However, about a hundred other NGOs failed to have their registration papers processed before the deadline, and will now have to suspend their operations.
Natalia Vishnyakova, director of the ministry's management and control department, said: "This does not mean organizations that have for some reason missed the re-registration deadline will have to stop their operations in Russia."
She said their status as legal entities entitles them to register at some point in the future.
