A Russian court has fined the organisation behind Russia's renowned Perm-36 Museum, which is housed in a former Gulag and is the only Soviet labour camp in Russia to have been preserved as a museum, state news agency Itar-Tass reports.

The Russian government declared the organisation running the museum a "foreign agent" in April, accusing it of taking foreign funding and being involved in political activity. The local government took control of the museum when the investigation was underway in March and the Perm-36 group has been forced to effectively shut down.

The organisation has now been fined 300,000 roubles ($5,250) while its former director Tatyana Kursina has been fined 100,000 roubles ($1,750). The organisation denies it acts as a "foreign agent"

The Perm-36 Museum was opened in 1996, recreating the conditions of a once functional Stalinist labour camp in the Ural mountains. However, earlier this year, Kursina's organisation ceased to run it due to the case opened against them and Radio Liberty has since reported that the new leadership has removed mentions of "Stalin," "dissident" or "gulag" from pamphlets advertising the place.

MOSCOW, July 9 (UPI) -- A list of "undesirable" civil rights organizations by the upper house of Russia's parliament is fueling perceptions of a crackdown on "foreign agents."

One non-governmental organization on the list, the Dynasty Foundation, which aided young and aspiring mathematicians and scientists, abruptly announced this week it was "liquidating its funds."

Soon after Vladimir Putin reassumed the presidency in 2012, he approved a law tightening controls on NGOs funded from abroad, forcing any that engage in "political activity" to register as a "foreign agent" -- a Cold War term.

A recent spate of anti-American sentiment in Russia has seen a legal NGO labeled a "foreign agent" — a term heavily implying espionage — after one of its leaders gave lectures in the U.S.

The Russian Justice Ministry deemedSutyazhnik, a civil litigation NGO, a "foreign agent" in May on the grounds that Anton Burkov, one of its directors, spoke at events at Harvard, the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and the University of Wisconsin last year. A court in Ekaterinburg, a city in the Ural mountains in central Russia, finedSutyazhnik and a sister organization 300,000 rubles (about $5,300) each earlier this month for failing to register as a foreign agent.

Burkov told BuzzFeed News that the decision had nothing to do with Sutyazhnik's foreign financing, which is limited to a 2013 grant from the British consulate in Ekaterinburg for an unrelated training program for bloggers. "They care that the money has come in but they don't care where it is spent," he said. "They're committing a genocide of NGOs through bankruptcy."

Putin and senior Russian officials have repeatedly said that Washington is using NGOs in Russia to foment regime change, a charge U.S. officials deny. Last week, Russian lawmakers recommended the country blacklist 12 foreign NGOs, ranging from American heavyweights like the Open Society and MacArthur foundation to obscure Polish groups, under a new law banning "undesirable organizations."

MOSCOW, July 21 (UPI) -- Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's last remaining independent newspapers, could face closure after receiving a second warning within the year from Roskomnadzor, the government's media watchdog group.

Under Russian law, the government may shut down a media outlet after two warnings.

The newspaper is accused of publishing expletive language from a literary text, The Moscow Times reported. President Vladimir Putin signed into law this past spring the banning of several crude curse words, which may not appear within the media.

Novaya Gazeta -- translated as the New Gazette -- is well known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. Their noted journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova and Yury Shchekochikin were all murdered in connection to their investigations. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev owns 10 percent of the newspaper.

Upset, dismayed and evidently feeling a little left out by the global embrace of the gay pride flag following the US Supreme Court ruling legalising same-sex marriage, Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party has hit back against with their own "straight" flag.

While homosexuality is not illegal in Russia, Mr Putin introduced a law in 2013 that bans symbols which promote "non-traditional" values.

Therefore, in response to the LGBT movement's rainbow flag, the United Russia Party unveiled a banner celebrating the traditional, nuclear Russian family. The flag depicts two parents - a woman and a man - holding hands with three children.

...

Andrei Lisovenko, deputy head of the United Russia branch in Moscow, told the Izvestia newspaper, "This is our response to same-sex marriage, to this mockery of the concept of the family.

Russian intolerance of gay people and same-sex marriages has grown significantly in the last decade, state-run pollster VTsIOM said Friday.

Eighty percent of Russians said they were against same-sex marriages, as opposed to 59 percent in 2005, the pollster found.
The number of those who think gay people should be allowed to get married has decreased from 14 percent in 2005 to 8 percent in 2015. According to the poll, only 3 percent of respondents said LGBT people should be able to bring up children.

Another 3 percent supported the idea of marriage, but said children should not be brought up in such households.

The number of people who consider gay people dangerous and said they should be “isolated from society” has also grown significantly since 2004, from 12 to 20 percent, the poll shows.