CIVICUS discusses moves to restrict civil society in Montenegro with Petar Knežević, Project Coordinator at the Centre for the Development of Non-Governmental Organisations, a local civil society organisation (CSO) working to defend democracy and civic freedoms.
A coalition of pro-Serbian and pro-Russian nationalist parties is pushing through a ‘foreign agents’ law aimed at restricting the work of civil society. Inspired by a 2012 Russian law that has since spread around the world, including to Hungary, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, the law would require organisations that receive foreign funding to register as foreign agents, limiting their activities.