The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, on March 23 approved amendments that will require activists of anti-corruption non-governmental organizations and investigative journalists to file publicly accessible electronic asset declarations, in the same way state officials are required to do.
The legislation is seen as an effort by the authorities to crack down on critics and anti-corruption activists. It has triggered a backlash from civil society, with some comparing it to the dictatorial Russian law branding NGOs as “foreign agents.”
The amendments will block NGOs’ work and apply even to third parties cooperating with and getting money from NGOs, including lessees, suppliers and printers, according to Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board.
The requirement on declarations will apply to investigative journalists who are investigating Ukrainian officials’ corruption and getting funds from abroad, said Oleksandr Lemenov, an expert at the Reanimation Package of Reform.
“There’s no doubt that this is a crackdown on free speech,” he argued.
The legislation also exempted rank-and-file military servicemen from filing electronic declarations.
Yegor Sobolev, chairman of parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said on March 23 that the amendments had a loophole allowing top corrupt officials to avoid filing declarations by getting war participant status.
The amendments may also damage Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts by exempting members and chairpeople of city and village councils from submitting declarations, said Oksana Syroid, a deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.
The amendment on NGOs was introduced by lawmaker Tetiana Chornovol of the People’s Front party. She initially also proposed requiring media editors to file declarations, which would severely restrict free speech, but later revoked that clause under public pressure.
The amendments were supported by President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, the People’s Front, the Radical Party and three offshoots of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions – the Opposition Bloc, Vidrodzhennya and the People’s Will.
