Open Society Foundations to Cease Operations in Kyrgyzstan

NEW YORK—The Open Society Foundations will close their national foundation in Kyrgyzstan following the passing of a new law which imposes restrictive, broad, and ill-defined regulations on the activities of internationally funded local organizations.

Open Society launched the Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan in 1993, when the country was navigating a complex socioeconomic crisis following its independence from the former Soviet Union.

Over the following three decades, the foundation provided over $115 million in funding for a wide range of projects working with both government and civil society partners in the country. These included supporting initiatives in the education and public health sectors, providing access to emerging digital technologies, and working to reform the country’s criminal justice and legal aid systems. Regrettably, this new law means these efforts, aimed at benefiting the country, will be unjustly labeled as the work of “foreign representatives.”

The Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan is locally governed and staffed but receives its funding from abroad, making it subject to the new legal restrictions, which would require all foreign funded nongovernmental organizations to report broadly defined “political” activities to the authorities, and risk other ill-defined consequences.

According to a statement on February 7 from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the new law risks “an overwhelmingly negative impact on civil society, human rights defenders, and the media in Kyrgyzstan.”

Binaifer Nowrojee, president of the Open Society Foundations, said: “I believe the foundation’s record over the past 30 years speaks for itself; the foundation and its dedicated staff have been able to provide important support for ordinary people across Kyrgyzstan in ways that bolster national aspirations toward democracy and open society. We are deeply saddened that this work cannot continue and that this repressive new law will see civil society operate in a climate of uncertainty and intimidation.”