MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - Authorities issued 6,000 warnings to non-governmental organizations working in Russian from January to April 2007, president of the Social Contract foundation Alexander Auzan told a news conference at Interfax.

As of September 2007, 2,300 public organizations were excluded from the list of eligible public organizations, expert of the Human Rights Watch Russia Tatyana Lokshina told the news conference referring to the data of the Russian Federal Registration Service (Rosregistratsiya).

Speaking about checks at NGOs, she said that authorities have never said that everything is fine with a public organization after a check.

Human rights activists also noted that Rosregistratsiya can carry out planned checks only twice per year; however, the number of unplanned checks, including those carried out by other authorities, is unlimited.

It was stated at the press conference that according to the Russian law on public organizations, it is more expensive and difficult to register a public organization than a business entity.

Lokshina also point out that the most complicated situation as to the activity of NGOs has been in the North Caucasus, "where they are attacked not only by officials, but also by law enforcement agencies.