Russian State Duma has given its first approval to amendments introducing foreign agent status to NGOs that receive foreign funding, after all the MPs of United Russia faction agreed to be listed as authors of the bill.The initiators of the move, a group of MPs from the majority United Russia Party, said they wanted the NGOs to fully inform Russian citizens about their foreign supporters and thus, about their real motivation. Besides, the MPs claimed they based the amendments on the international experience as similar situations exist in leading democratic countries and the very term foreign agent was copied from US legislation.The amendments in the original bill order all Russian NGOs that receive monetary or other aid from a foreign source to submit a request in the Justice Ministry to be registered in a special register of foreign agent organizations. Those who fail to do so will be punished by fines of up to 3,300,000 roubles (over $100,000) and repeated violators can spend up to 2 years in prison. The Justice Ministry is charged with the task of conducting annual inspections to check if the NGOs are correctly reporting about their sponsors and spot inspections are possible if the Ministry receives reports of NGO extremist activities.