The bad register is contagious

Have you seen the news that in Kazakhstan now there are also “foreign agents”? In general, this is not so - but only for now: the term itself will officially appear later, for example, to the next election

This week in Kazakhstan, the Committee of State Revenues under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic has published a register of individuals and legal entities receiving foreign financing. For Russians, perhaps the family smelled: the formulations are very similar to those that are applied to the lists of “foreign agents”. Moreover, even the participants of the Kazakhstan register themselves began to call themselves this way, although the official authorities of the country from such labels are dissolved. Novyevropa explains how the Kazakhstan analogue of the “foreign agents” differs from the Russian and why the current publication of the list of persons with foreign financing with all reservations does not promise Kazakhstan anything good.

The Slutsk cheese plant produces daily, according to the official site , 130 tons of cheese and the same volume of butter. But in Kazakhstan, where a significant part of the plant’s products are sent for the sale, the company will know by another figure - 111. It is under this number that Belarusians fell into the Kazakhstan register of “foreign Agents” (officially - “Register of people receiving money and (or) other property from foreign states, international and foreign organizations, foreigners, stateless persons to be published”), which is in the past week Published by the Committee of State Revenues, the structure of the Ministry of Finance.

The publication of the list of those who work in Kazakhstan at the expense of foreign grants did not become a big surprise, since the Ministry of Finance warned about this intention at the beginning of the year. The very need to report to the state for money received not from Kazakhstan has existed for five years - non -governmental organizations must do this (that is, as a rule, independent media and human rights organizations).

Now, according to the state, it is necessary to do this not by the Cloaror process, but to public - so that everyone knows where the money comes from. Allegedly, this increases "trust".

“Information is provided by persons whose activities are aimed at providing legal assistance, studying and conducting public opinion polls, sociological surveys (subparagraph 1 of paragraph 1 of Article 29 of the Tax Code). In 2022, amendments were amended in Article 29 of the Tax Code, according to which the state revenue committee publishes on its Internet resource the register of persons who received money or other property from foreign sources, ”the Ministry of Finance said in an official message.

What amazed everyone was the criteria for the selection of those who got into the register. Roughly speaking, there are no criteria: there were 240 organizations and individual entrepreneurs in the list of persons with foreign financing, among which only about half meets the formal requests of the Ministry of Finance itself. For obvious reasons, these are mainly medias like Internet, human rights organizations like the Kazakhstan International Human Rights Bureau, as well as part of independent media using foreign grants. The rest are structures like the very Slutsk cheese factory, the representative office of Mitsubishi, the Parapauerlifting Federation, the Nizhny Novgorod Chemical and Farmets Plant, as well as the Russian Gazprombank. Of the largest media organizations, the list has Reuters. At the same time

There are no those in the list whose presence would not cause any surprise. For example, information agencies associated with Russia (for example, Sputnik) or the United States (for example, the Radio Free Europe) did not get there.

There is an Azerbaijani cultural center, but Slavyansky - no. And further on the same principle.

In fact, the logic of getting on the list is as follows. Legal entities working with foreign financing (in 2018 there were 425 such ) must submit reports in special form 018. According to the law, this applies to those who collect sociological data, provides legal assistance or produces and disseminates information. The last point allows you to bring any organization to this form in general (after all, an advertising video or your own site is also the distribution of information), which at least once dealt with foreign money. In fact, not everyone passes Form 018 (for various reasons: they do not know about such necessity or cunning), and the Committee of State Revenues is not yet able to track all the receipts of funds from abroad. As a result, the list of “foreign agents” included those who conscientiously submitted the reporting, not imagining that they will be glorified in this way throughout the country.

The main dispute in the republic is now about whether this register can be considered a list of “foreign agents”. At the end of May, the Minister of Finance of the Country of the Country of the Country of the country said that such a term in Kazakhstan was not provided: "If someone receives foreign financing, please give a declaration, nothing else needs." And in fact, journalists publicly began to use this word-because of similarity to the Russian counterpart. However, except for the fact that this is the list, two common features have no other features yet. In Kazakhstan, the list is drawn up once every six months (however, it is not clear whether organizations that have not been foreign financing for the past 180 days will leave it); It is not supervised by the Ministry of Justice, but by the “peaceful” Ministry of Finance; The register has no need to put some dies or explanations on their resources. Even additional reporting should not be submitted, except for the one that has already been determined by law five years ago. In other words, the register of “foreign agents” rather causes ridicule than the frightening effect has (not to mention the fact that the names of some organizations there are written with gross errors).

But the harmlessness of such a register is imaginary.

Yes, now the legislation does not provide for restrictions regarding the structures that have entered the register. However, the more difficult the situation in the country's policy or economy will take shape, the more the temptation to introduce these restrictions. There is no need to go far for examples: in 2029, the presidential election should be held in Kazakhstan (though, in the history of the republic, they have never been held on time). The current president Kasim-Zhomart Tokaev repeatedly emphasized that he would not exhibit his candidacy, but the electoral history of Kazakhstan teaches that the situation can change at any time. But even if not, to conduct an “successor” operation, traditional for countries that experience problems with democracy, usually throw large resources - including because the monitoring of election violations are engaged in the same non -governmental organizations (and a significant part of them fell into the list of people with foreign financing). The announcement of the elections with a strategic event, to the observation of which foreigners and persons affiliated with them cannot be allowed - this has already been held in the CIS. Independent journalists can also be excluded from the process:

The country is preparing a new law “On mass media”, which provides for accreditation by issuing special press cards.

It is enough to prohibit media accreditation with foreign financing - and the problem has been solved. And if for this you need to introduce legislation on “foreign agents”, the state will need to take only one additional step, the rest of the base will already be ready.

In other words, the current list is a suspended ax, ready to sink at any time. Do not forget that individuals can also enter the register over time (in particular, from January 1, 2025, public income declares is introduced in Kazakhstan, which will allow the State Revenue Committee to track financial flows). And although the level of state paranoia, which is characteristic of present -day Russia, is not in Kazakhstan, the very fact of falling into such a register can be perceived as a “black label”. Although President Tokaev himself goes with might and main visits to the West (he was in the USA in the USA, a trip to Germany is soon planned soon) and now financing by foreigners is not a problem, an attempt to apply the old strategy “today he plays jazz, and tomorrow he will sell their homeland”. Only under suspicion is not public structures - which also actively use foreign assistance, but are not required to report on this - but ordinary Kazakhstanis. Even if they just bought one bar from the daily 130 tons of the cheese of the Slutsk cheese plant.