SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Lawmakers in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic on Thursday passed a draft law that labels non-profit groups funded from abroad as “foreign agents”, despite criticism from the opposition, civic organisations and Western diplomats.
The legislation provides for establishing a special registry of non-profit organisations working in the region that are funded from abroad, where they would be enlisted as “agents of foreign influence”, and requires transparency of their work.
Civic organisations have said the bill was modelled on a 2012 Russian law that Moscow has used extensively to crack down on civil society and independent media.
Serb Republic Justice Ministry Pero Bukejlovic said that without such legislation the region’s legal system and constitutional structure would be undermined.
The law was proposed by the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) led by Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik, which forms a parliament majority along with their coalition partners. It will be a subject of public discussion for 30 days before it comes into effect.
Opposition MPs said the bill was anti-democratic and would push the country in an increasingly authoritarian direction.
The European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have urged the lawmakers to reject the bill, saying it aimed to “intimidate and suppress civil society organisations by branding their representatives as ‘foreign agents'”.
Under the bill, the NGOs are banned from involving in any political activity, including proposing any kind of policy papers or legislation changes to institutions or political representatives.
Pro-Russian Dodik dismissed the allegations that the law is modelled on Russia’s legislation. He said the rules were based on the United States’ Foreign Agents Registration Act, which primarily covers lobbyists working directly for foreign governments.
The Serb Republic, which along with the Bosniak-Croat federation makes up Bosnia following its 1992-1995 war, passed a law in July that re-criminalised defamation despite protests by journalist associations and international criticism.
Adopting this new draft law would bring the Serb Republic closer to authoritarian regimes than to the European democracies, the EU said, warning that it contradicts the region’s commitments to advance European integration and priorities on civil society and media freedoms.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Ros Russell)
