On April 12, the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Legislation of Kyrgyzstan considered a draft foreign agents law and issued a resolution to recommend the draft law for parliamentary consideration. The Committee considered the draft law and made its resolution in a short time. The participating NGOs did not have opportunity to speak during the meeting. The Committee voted in favor of adopting the new version of the draft law.

While many restrictive measures in the past version of the law have been removed, the present version of the draft law would impose new reporting requirements on all NGOs. On a state-managed website, all NGOs are required to post a “annual report on financial- economic activity of a non-commercial organization, as well as on sources of establishment of its financial assets and property, information on personal composition of its management bodies and on the number of staff in the organization, and information on the use of property and financial resources of an organization.”  It is not clear what information would be mandatory for posting or the consequences (if any) for failure to provide this information.  The government would be authorized to bring other legislation in compliance with the new law within three months after its adoption.

On April 14, the Kyrgyz Parliament considered the draft law affecting NGOs in a second reading.  The new version of the draft law, which is much less restrictive compared to the original version of this law, was reviewed.  The discussion was very short and no Members of Parliament proposed to consider the old version of the draft law. One deputy proposed rejection the draft law in whole, but the proposal was not accepted. Some deputies supported the new version of the draft law. 73 deputies voted for favor of adoption and 25 against adoption.

The third and final consideration and adoption of the draft law will take place in 2 -3 weeks from today. According to the procedure of the Parliament during the third reading the Parliament will not make changes to the draft law. The Parliament will vote for or against adoption of the draft law.

A number of civil society organizations in Kyrgyzstan have opposed the adoption of this draft law and have issued an appeal against its adoption.  The Appeal of NGOs will be addressed to Kyrgyz President and Parliament. 44 civil society organizations have signed the appeal. You can find the appeal, written in Russian, here.