February 28, 2025.
Written by: Uroš Jovanović, manager of the Program for Public Policy in Civic Initiatives
Associations and foundations in the Republika Srpska entity will bear the label of agents of foreign influence if they provide funds for their work from abroad and if they advocate for better laws towards the institutions of this entity after the Proposal for the Law on the Special Register and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organizations was adopted with the support of the ruling parties on February 27, 2025.
The aforementioned law prohibits “political action” and “political activities”. Among other things, the law recognizes as “political activity” the “implementation of political activity for the purpose of influencing the formation of public opinion in order to achieve political goals”, and as political activity “any activity towards bodies, institutions or elected representatives of the Republic of Srpska or representatives of the Republic of Srpska in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the sense of formulating policy, political or public interest of the Republic of Srpska.”
Thus, all those who advocate the adoption of the best laws or point to gross violations of human rights and freedoms in this entity will be forced to submit applications to the new registry and be exposed to the possibility of violent termination in case they do not agree to additional administrative burdens related to their work, which includes additional and excessive reporting and monitoring.
A group of 41 non-profit organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina called this law “revenge against all critical voices” and that it was adopted “in an atmosphere of lynching and persecution that has been created by government representatives for a long time.” It is stated in the statement of these organizations that the entity institutions “can already control the financial or any other operations of civil society organizations” and that the associations “are prohibited from political activity under the existing law, but that in previous years this was not implemented in the case of non-governmental organizations that are under the control of the government and that are financed from the budget and that openly supported political parties and candidates in elections”.
An identical text of the law was proposed in Serbia by pro-Russian parliamentarians. The text appeared at a time of growing repression of Serbian civil society, which includes openly targeting activists and organizations, which are exposed to institutional violence, baseless investigations and police raids on their business premises.
Civil society is faced with more repressive measures of the authorities due to open criticism of the work of institutions in the region. They do not recognize the importance of the work of people and groups who dedicate their lives to the improvement of the society in which they live, so the only thing left for them is to seek help outside their own country. Instead of supporting them in their intention to work for a fairer society for all, institutions often resort to activities that significantly limit the work of organizations, while the highest state representatives conduct dirty campaigns against critics, inciting violence against them.