US Hasn't Filed Charges Against Russian Community Council Over FARA Concerns, Board Member Says

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US authorities have not filed charges against the Russian Community Council in the USA (RCC) over concerns related to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), RCC board member Anton Konev told Sputnik.

"To date, no charges [have been] filed", Konev said on Thursday.

The FBI has conducted searches of the homes of RCC Chair Elena Branson and Council Secretary Sergei Gladysh, Konev added.

"All this is preliminary, but we decided that it is not safe to continue our operations", he noted.

Konev said that the FBI also interviewed him, but did not search his house.

An FBI logo is pictured on an agent's shirt during the U.S. law enforcements raid on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska's property in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. October 19, 2021

© REUTERS / CARLO ALLEGRI

"[The] RCC gets no funding from the Russian government and gets no direct orders from anybody in the Russian government. It has a role of expressing the opinions of Russian compatriots in the US to the Russian government, but it works only in one direction – toward the Russian government", he said.

In a statement published on their website, the RCC notes that FARA has on multiple occasions been criticised for its selective enforcement and targeting of individuals and organisations for engaging with countries that are out of favour with the US government.

The RCC statement mentions that the FBI has questioned several hundred members of the Russian community across the country, including students and elderly individuals, and refers to the measure as "a form of pressure reminiscent of the Cold War era".

At the same time, RCC Chair Elena Branson expressed hope that American intel drops its investigation into the council's members.

"We hope that the intelligence community will sort out the situation and come to the realisation that individuals who organise Russian cultural events and openly advocate for more dialogue and people-to-people ties with Russia are not foreign agents", said Branson.

The RCC announced on Thursday that it was temporarily suspending all activities due to an FBI probe into alleged FARA violations that targeted members of the Russian community in the US. FARA is a US law passed in 1938 requiring anyone representing the interests of foreign powers in a political or quasi-political capacity to disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances.