Lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan have, in a widely anticipated move, given their definitive backing to a bill that stands to cripple the work of nongovernmental organizations advocating for human rights and independent media.

Fully 66 MPs registered as being present in the Jogorku Kenesh on March 14 voted in favor of the legislation in its third and final reading. Five voted against. Another nine present in the chamber abstained. There was no debate before the vote, which took seven minutes to complete.

All that remains is for President Sadyr Japarov to add his signature for the bill to become law. With that likely to happen imminently, affected NGOs will have only a short window of time in which to adapt. 

The legislation has been sold by its backers as a blow to “Western ideology,” a concept that is variously used to describe campaigning for political freedoms and LGBT advocacy. The Kyrgyz bill closely apes similar legislation adopted by Russia in 2012. 

The rushed vote in parliament, which took place without being featured on the chamber’s official timetable, came amid sustained international criticism from Kyrgyzstan’s partners and international organizations.  

Last month, Matteo Mecacci, the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s democracy- and rights-promotion arm, ODIHR, warned of what he saw as the risks of adopting what has commonly come to be known as the “foreign agents law.”

“If this legislation is adopted, I am worried it would have an overwhelmingly negative impact on civil society, human rights defenders, and the media in Kyrgyzstan,” he said in a statement.

Kyrgyzstan is a member state of the OSCE.

Another line of objection came from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is reported to have expressed his misgivings in a letter sent to the Kyrgyz authorities in January. In the note, Blinken reportedly stated that the bill threatened “Kyrgyz citizens’ access to vital services such as health care and education through programs run by NGOs with support from the U.S. government and international partners.”

“Some U.S. implementing partners are so concerned about this law … they are considering the possibility of a preventive termination of their activities in the Kyrgyz Republic,” Blinken said in the letter.

Japarov initially lashed out at that criticism, although lawmakers did subsequently mitigate one punitive aspect of the proposed law. They did so by removing a provision invoking criminal liability and sentences of up to 10 years in prison for members of NGOs found guilty of involvement in “violence against citizens” or inducing the public “to refuse to perform civil duties or commit other illegal acts.”

Under this legislation, any NGOs receiving funding from abroad will be classified as “foreign representatives.” Those types of organizations will also have to submit to annual audits and provide details on all their employees and their salaries.

Critics complain that the selectively imposed bureaucracy entailed in the requirements of the new rules will be so costly and onerous that many NGOs will have to cease operations. In February, the OSCE’s media freedom representative, Teresa Ribeiro, argued that news outlets could be especially hard-hit, further chilling a worsening environment for independent journalism.

“The introduction in this draft law of burdensome reporting requirements is likely to prove unsustainable for small and medium-sized media organizations, and will pose significant risks to media freedom and open debate on issues of public interest in Kyrgyzstan,” she said.

While pro-government voices contend that their intention is merely to enhance financial transparency, the potentially affected parties suspect the true goal is to stir public animosity toward them by having them cast as operatives for outside paymasters.

Approval of the NGO legislation comes on the heels of what had looked like a placatory gesture from the increasingly authoritarian system presided over by Japarov. 

The president’s office announced on March 13 that he had withdrawn a contentious draft bill that was fueling unhappiness over its potential for restricting freedom of speech. Japarov’s press secretary said in a Facebook post that the president took the decision to seek a revision of the bill after meeting with 40 media representatives a few days earlier.

The media legislation now put on ice stood to complicate the work of journalists by instituting bureaucratically onerous accreditation procedures. Another provision made journalists liable for producing content perceived as calling for public unrest or toppling the government, promoting same-sex marriage and “non-traditional sexual relationships,” or harming “public morals.”

The sudden and cursory way in which parliament has adopted the foreign agents law means NGOs will have to scramble to ensure compliance. 

A coalition of rights groups warned ahead of this vote that if finally approved, “the new law would enter into force very rapidly.” 

It will happen “10 days after its official publication, with the government having only one month to elaborate implementing procedures. These procedures could be developed without any public consultation,” the coalition said in their collective statement.