Glasnost Defense Foundation is a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 with the stated goals are the defense of journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

s, journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, and the freedom of expression in Russia. Its president is Alexei Simonov, a member of Moscow Helsinki Group

Moscow Helsinki Group

The Moscow Helsinki Group is an influential human rights monitoring non-governmental organization, originally established in what was then the Soviet Union; it still operates in Russia....

 and a recipient of National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

 award.

Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF) was organized on June 6, 1991 by Yegor Yakovlev

Yegor Yakovlev

Yegor Vladimirovich Yakovlev was one of the founders of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin's policy of glasnost, and one of the most respected Russian journalists....

, Vladimir Molchanov, Igor Golembiovsky, Mark Rozovsky, Elem Klimov

Elem Klimov

Elem Germanovich Klimov was a Soviet Russian film director. He studied at VGIK, and was married to film director Larisa Shepitko. He is best known in the West for his final film, 1985's Come and See , a powerful tale of a teenage boy in German-occupied Byelorussia during the German-Soviet War,...

, Aleksei German

Aleksei German

Aleksei Yuryevich German is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, most active as a director and screenwriter. His last name is pronounced with a hard "g" and in English is frequently spelled Guerman or Gherman to avoid confusion.Almost all of German's films have been set during the Stalin era and have...

 and other prominent Russian filmmakers and journalists. GDF is member of International Freedom of Expression Exchange

International Freedom of Expression Exchange

The International Freedom of Expression eXchange , founded in 1992, is a global network of around 90 non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression....

. It works in close collaboration with Reporters without borders

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...

, Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

, International PEN

International PEN

PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....

, Memorial society

Memorial (society)

Memorial is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states....

, and other organizations.

Glasnost Defense Foundation identifies and records all individual cases of journalist's rights violations in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. The list of criminal cases compiled by the GDF in 2006 represents 1,345 conflicts including 9 killed and 69 assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

ed journalists. In 2005, the list of all recorded cases includes 6 murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

s, 63 assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

s, 12 pogrom

Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...

s of editorial offices, 23 cases of censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, 42 criminal prosecutions, 11 illegal layoff

Layoff

Layoff , also called redundancy in the UK, is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or a group of employees for business reasons, such as when certain positions are no longer necessary or when a business slow-down occurs...

s, 47 arrest

Arrest

An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

s, 382 lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

s, 233 cases of obstruction

Obstruction

Obstruction may refer to:* Obstruction theory, in mathematics* Obstruction of justice, the crime of interfering with law enforcement* Obstructing government administration* Propagation path obstruction** Single Vegetative Obstruction Model-Medical:...

, 23 closings of editorial offices by authorities, 10 eviction

Eviction

How you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...

s, 28 confiscation

Confiscation

Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...

s of printed production, 23 cases of stopping broadcasting

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...

, 38 refusals to distribute or print production, 25 acts of intimidation

Intimidation

Intimidation is intentional behavior "which would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities" fear of injury or harm. It's not necessary to prove that the behavior was so violent as to cause terror or that the victim was actually frightened.Criminal threatening is the crime of intentionally or...

, and 344 other violations of Russian journalist's rights http://www.gdf.ru/monitor/2005/2005.shtml.

Funding

Glasnost Defense Foundation is financed by Soros Foundation

Soros Foundation

A Soros Foundation is one of a network of national foundations, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, which fund volunteer socio-political activity, created by George Soros, international financier and self-proclaimed philanthropist, and coordinated since early 1994 by a management team called the...

, MacArthur Foundation

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...

, and National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

 (USA) among others. The yearly budget of this organization is about 500 000 to 700 000 US dollars http://www.gdf.ru/about/finance.shtml. It receives finances from the foundations established under the auspices of the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Canada embassies in Russian Federation. According to Glasnost Defense Foundation, in the year 2000 the cumulative budget of Foundation was $ 481,846. Sums received from Ford Foundation

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....

 - $ 165 000; Eurasia Foundation

Eurasia Foundation

Eurasia Foundation is a publicly funded, privately managed grantmaker and program implementer working to strengthen civil society, advance private enterprise and promote public policy and administration in the successor states of the former Soviet Union—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia,...

 - $ 24 060; National Endowment for Democracy - $ 60 676; Henry M. Jackson

Henry M. Jackson

Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death...

Foundation - $ 23 100; MacArthur's Foundation - $ 37 500; Internews Moscow - $ 16 200; Institute of Open Society Budapest - $ 97,810; International PEN $ 7,500; Institute of Open Society, Moscow - $ 50 000. http://www.gdf.ru/about/finance.shtml.