Human Rights Watch (HRW) published an update earlier this week on the plight of foreign Human Rights NGOs working in Russia. In 2012, Russia passed laws requiring NGOs who receive foreign funds and engage in “political work” to register as “foreign agents” with the Ministry of Justice; the definition of “political work” used in the law is extremely broad and vague that HRW says that this definition “can extend to all aspects of advocacy and human rights work”. HRW has published a list of the organizations who have been compelled to register as foreign agents (most of these were not voluntary registrations the article suggests). The article also details a number of civil and administrative actions brought by the Russian state against these organizations and their workers.