More and more autocrats are stifling criticism by barring non-governmental organisations from taking

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foreign cash

“We're not dealing with civil society members but paid political activists who are trying to help foreign interests here.” So claimed Viktor Orban, Hungary’s increasingly autocratic prime minister, last July, in a speech describing his plans to turn his country into an “illiberal state”. This continued an attack that began earlier this year on dozens of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Hungary that have received funds from the Norwegian government under a 20-year-old deal to strengthen civil society in poorer parts of Europe.

Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela have all passed laws in the past two years affecting NGOs that receive foreign funds. Around a dozen more countries plan to do so, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Malaysia and Nigeria. NGOs focused on democracy-building or human rights are the most affected, but the crackdown is also hitting those active in other areas, such as public health.

Many of the new laws are broadly drafted and vague about the criteria for blocking foreign cash. Russian NGOs active in sensitive areas, such as human rights, have had their offices raided in the hunt for evidence of foreign influence. Uzbekistan requires all foreign donations to be paid into two state-owned banks, from which very little of it ever emerges. In Egypt, where the government plans to tighten already restrictive laws further, a $5,000 “Nelson Mandela Innovation Award” in 2011 from Civicus, a global network of NGOs, to the New Woman Foundation, an Egyptian NGO, was blocked for unspecified “security reasons”.

A fightback is belatedly getting under way. In 2011 the UN appointed Maina Kiai as a Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, to focus on the problem. The Open Government Partnership, an intergovernmental group set up the same year, provides cash to governments committed to promoting transparency and a pluralistic civil society. The staff of some vulnerable groups are being trained in how to lobby against repressive laws and do better at domestic fundraising.

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21616969-more-and-more-autocrats-are-stifling-criticism-barring-non-governmental-organisations

A strong and active civil society is not generally something that autocrats like since sharing power is not what they are all about.

[bananas]

1. k&r nt