Russia bans George and Amal Clooney’s charitable foundation amid accusations it used ‘Hollywood-scale activities’ to ‘discredit’ the country

George and Amal Clooney‘s charitable foundation has been banned in Russia after accusations it used ‘Hollywood-scale activities’ to ‘discredit’ the country.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice, which was established by the actor and human rights lawyer, was classed as ‘undesirable’ by authorities in Moscow.

In a statement, Kremlin prosecutors said: ‘Under the guise of humanitarian ideas, these “warriors for justice”… have promoted criminal probes against the highest Russian authorities.’

It comes just three months after legal adviser to the foundation Anna Neistat suggested it wanted the West to prosecute ‘Russian propagandists’.

At the time, the Kremlin claimed the foundation was on a ‘judicial safari targeting Russian journalists’ – which Mr Clooney denied. 

George and Amal Clooney’s (pictured in 2022) charitable foundation has been banned in Russia after accusations it used ‘Hollywood-scale activities’ to ‘discredit’ the country 

In a statement, Kremlin prosecutors said: ‘Under the guise of humanitarian ideas, these “warriors for justice”… have promoted criminal probes against the highest Russian authorities’. Pictured: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on August 19

The prosecutors also mocked Ms Clooney’s record as a human rights lawyer known for handling high-profile cases including the Isis genocide of Yazidis, as ‘someone who considers herself an international law barrister’. 

Mr Clooney distanced himself from Neistat’s remarks, saying ‘someone in our foundation misspoke’, before adding ‘we at the Clooney Foundation would never go after journalists, even if we disagree with them.’

Russia’s law on ‘undesirable organisations’ had been inactive for the better half of the past decade before the Kremlin began to use it to essentially outlaw its opponents and drive them out of the country. 

US think tanks and Russian media organisations in exile, such as the TV channel Dozhd, have been previously designated as ‘undesirable’. 

The ‘undesirable’ status has had particularly painful implications for media outlets such as the news website Meduza, which stopped offering subscriptions to Russian residents and crowdfunding in Russia.

This was because the Kremlin crackdown meant a mere money transfer could land a donor in prison.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice does not have an office located within Russia. 

Andrei Pivovarov, one of the Russians released earlier this month in a prisoner swap between Russia and the US, was serving a four-year sentence after working for an ‘undesirable organisation’.

He worked at an NGO founded by the opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman who was Russia’s richest man in 2003, but who is now exiled and living in London.