Authorities take new steps to stifle NGOs

Yesterday the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and State Building approved draft amendments to tighten control over the use of grants and donations from NGOs, religious structures and other organizations.

Thus, the amendment to Article 233 of the Code of Administrative Offences means that failure to report in time to the executive body the registration of contracts and copies of decisions on the receipt of grants will be fined: for officials - from 1,500 to 2,500 manats, and for legal entities - from 5,000 to 7,000 manats.

According to another amendment, religious organizations and NGOs that operate without a grant contract and have benefits from foreign NGO representatives will also be penalized. The officials of these institutions will be fined from 2,500 to 5,000 manat and the legal entities - from 8,000 to 15,000 manats with confiscation of assets and property.

In addition, the proposed amendment to the law of Azerbaijan "On freedom of religion", tighten control over the use of donations.

According to the proposed changes, a religious structure may not provide any benefits to a donor or to another person in response to promised or received donations.

The grantor (or someone who is going to provide a donation or grant to a religious structure), cannot directly or indirectly receive material or other values, or consent to any suggestions.

At the same time, donations up to 200 manat will not be documented and are not available for responsibility, said the author of the bill - Deputy Chinghiz Ganizadeh.

According to Ganizadeh, the amendments aim to increase the transparency of NGOs, religious organizations and other community organizations.

It is expected that the amendments will be approved by parliament in the coming days.

Note that in practice it will mean a further tightening of many human rights and restrictions on democratic NGOs. Many of these NGOs do not have state registration because their registration has been refused by authorities. However, they receive grants from foreign donors. Now, the authorities of Azerbaijan will refuse to register grant agreements, referring to the fact that the NGO has no registration.

Over the last five years, the authorities have been trying to deprive NGOs of their funding and destroy them by annually tightening related laws and their conditions. The reason for this is that all violations of human rights and freedoms, democracy and corruption cases are investigated by these NGOs. After destroying them, the authorities hope to put an end to the interminable revelations of their illegal actions. -06D-