Kyrgyzstan’s Choice

As Kyrgyzstan’s parliament hustles to change dozens of laws ahead of a December 23 deadline to formally sign on to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, another measure, one targeting foreign-funded nonprofit organizations, is also making its way through the legislature in Bishkek. The law, clearly based on 2012 Russian legislation and originally proposed in the Kyrgyz parliament in September 2013, would require NGOs receiving foreign funds and engaging in political activities to register as “foreign agents.”

Reintroduced in May 2014, the revived foreign agents law broadly defines “political activities” as “organizing and conducting political actions dedicated to changing state policy as well as to influence public opinion for such purposes.” This includes advocacy activities focusing on human rights, for example. In addition, the law increases the reporting burden on NGOs, requiring annual independent audits, separate accounts for assets generated from local and foreign sources, as well as quarterly expenditure reports. Not only would the law expand government authority over Kyrgyz NGOs, but according to the International Center for Non-Profit Law, it would instate criminal penalties for the establishment and management of NGOs if its activities cause “citizens to disobey their civic duties” or engage in other illegal acts.

Kyrgyzstan’s draft foreign agents law is by no means unique in the region. Tajikistan is currently considering similar legislation, which has been characterized by NGO workers there as an “additional instrument of pressure and control.”

The 2012 Russian law on which both the Kyrgyz and Tajik laws are based has been used in the past two years to hamper the activities of well-known NGOs such as Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. Russia’s only independent election monitor was fined $10,000 in April 2013 for not registering and the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent polling agency, was threatened with closure after receiving foreign funding – from sources such as the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy – amounting to 1 to 3 percent of the pollster’s total budget.

Backers of the Kyrgyz foreign agents law, such as co-sponsor of the bill MP Tursunbai Bakir Uulu, make the argument that NGOs in Kyrgyzstan need to be more transparent. In June, he told Eurasianet that “Society needs to know how the money sent from abroad is spent.”

Speaking of money from abroad, Moscow has finally confirmed that it will indeed be sending $1.2 billion to Bishkek over the next two years to smooth the country’s entry into the Eurasian Union. The aid package, mentioned often by Kyrgyz politicians over the past year, was ratified by the Duma at the end of November with the first $100 million expected to be disbursed via a grant by the end of the year. Not only is the foreign agents law inspired by Russia, but an anti-gay bill that would establish jail sentences for “homosexual propaganda,” which is simultaneously working its way through the parliament, is also copied from a Russian law. The re-Russification of Kyrgyzstan, and other Central Asian states, isn’t even subtle.

In early December, 43 leaders of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan sent a letter to Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev after he said in a television interview that some NGO activities may “pose a threat” to national security.

The letter urges Akayev to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. It somewhat ominously notes that “two previous presidents who said that NGOs threaten Kyrgyzstan’s national security were threatening national security themselves, and as a result were kicked out of the country.”

Kyrgyzstan’s pair of revolutions, in 2005 and 2010, like all such events had many contributing factors, but the clamping down on NGOs prior to the overthrow of the sitting president is certainly a commonality. National security, a classic excuse for politicians in Central Asia to tamp down on dissenting views, remains a primary argument made by those who support foreign agent laws such as those in consideration in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

With regard to the Tajikistan law, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting quoted a Tajik official who seemed to confirm the law’s intent. According to IWPR, the anonymous official said that “Tajikistan wants to prevent the kind of events that took place in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other countries,” the official said. “The main aim of these amendments… is to prevent funding from abroad that could be used to overthrow the government, or spread terrorist and extremist ideas.”

Although this version of the foreign agents law may fail to pass, as previous laws have also failed to move beyond parliamentary debate, it marks a worrisome trend in which human rights and democracy advocates are lumped together with jihadists as a threats to the state. It was Kyrgyzstan’s relatively vibrant civil society and openness to NGO assistance which made it Central Asia’s bright spot, the dimming of that light bodes ill for the region. The very laws that Kyrgyz and Tajik politicians hope will insulate them from criticism and revolution, are the laws that may generate the very same conditions which they fear.