KYRGYZSTAN TO CHECK NGOS

Justice Minister Marat Kayipov has ordered
his ministry to check all NGOs that receive funding from abroad to
determine whether any of them threaten the country’s national
security, UPI reported on 24 January. Edil Baisalov, leader of the
coalition For Democracy and Civil Society, told the news agency that
the move is part of a broader campaign. «In the past few days, Kyrgyz
media have carried an increasing number of reports focusing on the
role of the nongovernmental sector and accusing it of serving U.S.
interests and Western donors,» Baisalov said.

Alisher Mamasaliev, head of the youth organization KelKel, told ferghana.ru: «There will
probably be an initiative to control or pressure [NGOs] through the
National Statistics Committee, tax inspectors. In my view, however,
it’s not worth making hay out of the fact that a number of NGOs work
on the basis of foreign grants.» The move to check NGOs comes on the
heels of a similar campaign in Russia, where state-controlled
television recently aired a program accusing a number of NGOs of
receiving funding through Britain’s intelligence services (see
«RFE/RL Newsline,» 23 January 2006). DK