International Foundation for Civil Liberties

The International Foundation for Civil Liberties (Russian: Международный фонд гражданских свобод) is a non-profit organization established by the Russian-British oligarch Boris Berezovsky in November 2000. The foundation is headquartered in New York City and headed by former George Soros-employee Alexander Goldfarb. The stated mission of the foundation is "to provide financial, legal, informational and logistical resources to secure human rights and civil liberties in Russia." The organisation is hostile to the current political establishment of Russia and the presidency of Vladimir Putin in particular.

The first grant of the foundation ($3 million) was given as an endowment for the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Civic Center in Moscow. The grant was accepted by Sakharov's widow Elena Bonner. By May 2001, 160 more grants have been awarded by the foundation to NGOs which claim to be engaged in "human rights protection across Russia" including Committees of Soldiers' Mothers, a network labeled as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. Among other IFCL projects in Russia, observers noted support of anti-government journalists, soldiers and funding lawyers to defend youth offenders.

As part of its campaign to highlight violations of human rights in Chechnya, jointly with British-based Amnesty International and the International Helsinki Federation, IFCL sponsored screening of documentaries on the Chechen War around the world. and took out full-page advertisements in international press criticising the human rights record of president Vladimir Putin. IFCL promoted the film Assassination of Russia, which forwards a conspiracy theory that the FSB security service staged the Moscow apartment bombings as a false flag, which led to the Second Chechen war.

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