Vulin wants Russian law in Serbia: bill on special register of foreign influence agents submitted to the Parliament

The Socialist Movement’s people’s deputies Bojan Torbica and Đorđe Komlenski have submitted to the Assembly a bill on a special register of agents of foreign influence.

The bill states that “all associations and non-profit organisations that are predominantly financed or otherwise supported by other countries, their authorities, international and foreign organisations, foreign citizens or registered NGOs financed from abroad” are considered as “agents”.

“Predominantly funded” means that the association or non-profit organisation has received (earned) more than half of its total funding from the entities referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article in the last year,” it is noted.

As foreign entities, this proposal recognises “a government, executive bodies of another country or a foreign political party, a natural person who does not have the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia and resides in Serbia, or a legal person or a group of legal persons that is organised, registered or established under the laws of another country or has its seat in another country”.

For the purposes of this Law, an agent of foreign influence is also a non-profit organisation engaged in political activities or political action, as well as other activities related to political organisation and action, the aim of which is to undermine democracy, violate the integrity of the Republic of Serbia, violate the freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, and incite national, racial or religious hatred and intolerance. .

It is proposed that statements by representatives of agents of foreign influence, printed materials and materials published through electronic media, information and telecommunication networks or disseminated in any other way shall indicate that the organisation is registered in the Register of Agents of Foreign Influence.

The Register of Agents of Foreign Influence shall be established and maintained by the Ministry of Justice.

In the event that a non-profit organisation operates and performs activities within the scope of its activities, but is not registered in the Register of Agents of Foreign Influence or has not submitted a report, the Ministry shall submit to the competent court a proposal for prohibition of the performance of works and shall submit a report against the persons responsible in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Law of the Republic of Serbia.

Draconian penalties

A fine of 100,000 to 2,000,000 dinars is imposed on a non-profit organisation for the offence, with a fine of 5,000 to 200. 000 dinars, and the person in charge who fails to label promotional material in accordance with this Law, fails to submit a report or, when submitting or supplementing an application, that inaccurate information is given in relation to the registration in the Register of this Law, fails to submit a supplement to the application on the changes made within the prescribed time limit, fails to. submit the financial report prescribed by law shall also be punished with an offence.

Bojan Torbica, MP of the party of which Aleksandar Vulin is the founder, notes that there has been a long-standing “fruitless debate in the domestic public about the need for greater transparency in the work of the non-governmental sector”. It is, he says, a defeatist fact that associations openly working against state and national interests exist and operate unhindered in Serbia.

“Our country has been overrun by various professional activists who, with huge fees from foreign clients, fight for anything but the interests of their own country and their compatriots. To further prevent this kind of behaviour, we propose a fundamental change in the legal regulation of funding for the NGO sector,” it says.

Torbica also announces that he will soon propose a law that will “regulate in more detail the financial control of the NGO sector and prevent money from being poured from the account of one NGO into the account of another in order to conceal the sources and flows of funding”.

He believes that a law should be passed, like the 1938 FARA law in the USA, to register all societies that are predominantly financed from abroad and that seek to influence the decision-making of state authorities.

Torbica says it is high time that citizens find out who is from abroad and how much the various associations, i.e. non-profit organisations, are paid, according to whose programmes and guidelines they operate and, above all, to which foreign governments and organisations they are accountable.

Russian law

As a reminder, Russia has a similar law, introduced in 2012 and extended in 2022, requiring organisations receiving foreign funding to register as “foreign agents”, which brings with it inspections, draconian penalties and restrictions on activities.

The qualification of “foreign agent” includes any individual or group that receives any amount of money from abroad – whether from foreign governments, organisations or even citizens – and that publishes “printed, audio, audiovisual or other reports and materials”.

Once the authorities label people or organisations as “foreign agents”, they must label everything they publish – including social media posts – with a phrase indicating their status as a foreign agent. They must also submit financial and banking statements to the government every six months and carry out annual audits.

Critics claim that the Russian authorities are using the law to crack down on the media, activists, opposition groups and individuals who criticise the Kremlin. Civil society groups have expressed concern, saying it intimidates individual journalists or human rights defenders and stifles dissenting and opposing views.

The Kremlin rejects criticism that the law on “foreign agents” is censorship, but President Putin says the law is necessary to protect Russia from foreign interference./The Geopost/