The Chairman of the Murmansk Oblast Saami Social Organization (OOSMO) Dinara Skavronskaya made a comment to the FINUGOR Infocenter on the story published by the federal media of Russia stating that two Saami organizations are considered foreign agents. D. Skavronskaya, among others received a document to that effect from the public prosecutor’s office of the Lovozero district of the Murmansk oblast.

" I consider this warning nothing more then following the law, no more. There was no aggressive harassment, neither from moral nor rights standpoint, - she noted. Our organization  is concerned with protecting rights, and that can be seen as something political. Naturally, we do receive grants from abroad, but that is mostly for cultural aims. From the public prosecutor's point of view, we would be foreign agents if we wanted to create our own political structure and participate in elections under the name of the organization. As of today, we don’t plan on doing anything of the sort. Perhaps in the future, we will have to".

We remind our readers that a message recently appeared in federal media stating that the public prosecutor of the Murmansk oblast had ruled that Saami unity organizations fall under the law on foreign agents.

The chair of the Saami parliament of the Kola peninsula (Kuellnegk nyoark samm’ sobbar) Valenitina Sovkina told the FINUGOR Infocenter that no documents to that affect from the Murmansk oblast public prosecutor’s office have reached the KNSS, in that it is an elective body, and not a registered social organization, which would fall under the articles of the law.

D. Skavronskaya has provided the Infocenter copies of the document from the public prosecuter (see below in Russian).