Azerbaijan: amendments to Law on NGOs are assessed differently

Azerbaijan has drafted a bill of amendments to the Law "On Nongovernmental Associations (Foundations)", which caused serious criticism by representatives of the civil society. In the opinion of the public, adoption of the amendments will be a serious blow on democracy in the country.

On June 9, the bill was approved at the sitting of the parliamentary committee on legal policy and state construction, which was held without any representatives of independent media, and was recommended for consideration at the plenary session of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan.

"The offered amendments are aimed at liquidation of the third sector," Panakh Gusein, MP from the "Musavat" group, said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Deputy Gusein believes that only the amendment forbidding NGOs to take the names of state organizations and political figures is acceptable. In his opinion, "it's important for preventing certain dirty people to make use of NGOs in their mercenary aims."

"The remaining amendments have the aim to eradicate the democratic essence NGOs. For example, one of them assumes obtaining an opinion from respective bodies whether the registered NGO can bring threat to safety and public order. This provision is absurd, as it's impossible to assess a still inoperative NGO. On the other hand, this mechanism will surely and initially guarantee loyalty of the NGO to the authorities," said the MP.

In his opinion, another antidemocratic measure is the requirement to the NGOs claiming to obtain the nationwide status to have affiliates (branches) in 30 percent of the country's administrative units.

"An NGO is not a mass political party. It can be a voluntary association even of a very small group of people dealing with issues of some very narrow sphere. I think that this requirement pursues the aim to deprive NGOs of chances to work in the regions," Mr Gusein says.

He also disagrees with the amendment demanding to ensure 50 percent of NGO's property from local sources.

"This in fact deprives many influential NGOs of the countries of participation in international projects and help of foreign donors," said Panakh Gusein and emphasized that many human rights entities work for account of foreign grants; it will be difficult for them to find local funds, since nobody will take the risk of helping people who criticize the government.

The Deputy's serious criticism was also caused by the proposed novelty to prohibit activities of foreign NGOs and their branches, except for the cases stipulated by intergovernmental treaties.

However, Azai Guliev, head of the Board of NGOs' State Support and a member of the parliamentary committee on legal policy and state construction, does not share Mr Gusein's fears. In his opinion, as a whole, the amendments have no "restrictive character".