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Civicus World Alliance for Citizen Participation has written an open letter protesting the bill Establishment and Supervision of NGOs, which would place civil society in Iran under the jurisdiction of the security apparatus. Were the bill to become law, it would effectively criminalize most independent society in Iran.
The letter, signed by Civicus director Ingrid Srinath, begins as follows:
18 April 2011
H.E. Ali Larijani
Speaker of Parliament
Majles-e Shorura-ye-Eslami
Baharestan Square, Tehran, Iran
Email: [email protected]Your Excellency,
I write as the Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, an international alliance of civil society with members in over one hundred countries.
CIVICUS is pleased to hear that the Iranian Parliament has voted to suspend the review of the Establishment and Supervision of NGOs Bill for three months and referred it to the Social Commission of the Iranian Parliament for further deliberation. We welcome this action and implore members of Parliament and the government to use this interim period to reflect on provisions in the Bill that will guarantee the freedoms of expression, association and assembly as enshrined in the Iranian Constitution and in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a party.
We remain concerned that despite strong reservations from Iranian civil society, sections (including Article 6 and parts of Article 12) of the proposed Bill which have already been implemented will not be subject to this review. Article 6 of the Bill, for instance, authorises the creation of a Supreme Committee which will be composed of representatives from the security and other sectors including the judiciary, Ministry of Intelligence and the Basij resistance forces with powers to approve or reject the registration permits for NGOs. The Supreme Committee has also been empowered to have control over the choice, activities and decisions of the Board of Directors of NGOs and can decide to monitor the activities of NGOs and close their operations. We note with deep anxiety that the NGO community will have only one representative on the Supreme Committee.
Read the complete text of the letter on their website.
