"After examination of the documents a decision was made not to issue visas... deliberately false information was provided on the purpose of their visit to the Russian Federation," spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said.
If the three HRW officials provide documents stating the real purpose of their visit, visas will be provided, he said.
At the start of the year, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth and two of his colleagues asked the Russian consulate general in New York to issue them with tourist visas to Russia, but indicated that the purpose of their visit was to meet with NGO officials and journalists.
On February 14, 2008, the U.S. nationals asked the consulate general to issue business visas to them as managers of a company. "However the visa forms said the purpose of their visit was to meet with Russian Federation government members, the diplomatic corps and journalists," Kamynin said.
On Wednesday, Roth said on the phone from New York during a Moscow presentation of a report on the state of civil society in Russia that the Russian Foreign Ministry had changed the requirements necessary for the issuance of his visa.
Roth had planned to personally attend the presentation of the report, entitled 'Choking on Bureaucracy: State Curbs on Independent Civil Society Activism'.
The New York-based rights body says this is the first time its staff have been denied Russian visas since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
