Parliament urged to reject proposed NGO law

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday called on the Ugandan Parliament to reject a proposed law which it claimed would threaten the legitimate activities of civil society. In a briefing paper on the proposed NGO law and other recurrent restrictions on NGOs operating in Uganda, HRW said the Non-Governmental Organisations Amendment Bill would give the government wide-ranging powers to suspend NGOs that did not conform to any "government policy or plan". NGO leaders could be imprisoned for up to one year if they breached the proposed law, the statement added. "The proposed law potentially criminalises civil society organisations instead of recognising their enormous contribution to the social, political and economic life in Uganda," said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser at the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The parliament should draft a new law instead, that aims at building a constructive relationship between the state and civil society," she added. Des Forges claimed that both current law and the proposed legislation contravened the right to freedom of association guaranteed under international law. "As party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Uganda is bound to those standards," she added. HRW called on the Ugandan government to review the current law to "limit the powers of the state to interfere with legitimate NGO activity". A vote on the proposed bill will be one of the first tasks facing the new Ugandan parliament, elected in June this year, the international human rights organisation said.