by Rhea Karuturi
This Thursday, China passed a new law that has attracted the world’s attention. It is a law that increases police supervision of foreign NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and affects almost 7,000 foreign NGOs. The law gives the government more control over the workings of these organizations and makes it mandatory for the NGOs to have local partners. And China is not alone in this move towards more regulation of NGOs — it is a part of a much larger trend that includes countries like Russia, India, Uganda and Kenya.
A lot has been said about the missteps of countries trying to police NGOs, and the arguments pointing out that this is a dangerous trend make sense — it is concerning that humanitarian efforts are being scrutinized and that politically sensitive topics may be further silenced. NGOs often fill the gaps left by governments and are an important source of information about issues that governments are not paying attention to.
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