A bill on "foreign agents"has been submitted to the Serbian parliament
Kyiv • UNN
A bill on registration of organizations with foreign funding has been submitted to the Serbian parliament. The pro-Russian party is proposing fines of up to 17,000 euros for violating registration requirements.
A bill on "Agents of foreign influence" was submitted to the Serbian parliament, which first appeared in Russia, and then led to last year's protests in Georgia. This is reported by the Balkan service of Radio Liberty, writes UNN.
Details
It is noted that deputies from the Socialist Movement party, founded by pro-Russian Vice-President Aleksandar Vulin, submitted a bill providing for mandatory registration of organizations with foreign funding in the Ministry of Justice.
In case of non-compliance with this requirement, it is proposed to impose fines or prohibit the activities of such organizations altogether. The amount of fines varies from 5,000 dinars (approximately EUR 42) to 2,000,000 dinars (approximately EUR 17,000).
According to Vulin, the proposed bill corresponds to the practice of the United States, where, as he claims, funding of non-governmental organizations from foreign sources is prohibited.
He was probably referring to the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) of 1938. At the same time, journalists explain that it was adopted for a completely different purpose: to suppress Nazi and later communist propaganda.
Currently, the law is aimed at countering money laundering, corruption, terrorism and avoiding sanctions. However, it is worth noting that FARA does not prohibit lobbying for foreign interests and does not impose restrictions on the financing of organizations from abroad.
recall
In August, Georgia officially came into force the law on "foreign agents" — it was signed by the speaker of the country's parliament, thus bypassing the veto of President Salome Zurabishvili.
The adoption of this law caused public outrage - thousands of people began to protest the adoption of this document in the country. Critics of the bill consider it an analog of the Russian one, which the Kremlin uses to suppress freedom of speech in its country.
After the adoption of the law, the European Union stopped part of the aid to Georgia, and the United States postponed military exercises indefinitely.
