ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Don't look there, look here?
Officials in Kazakhstan are mulling amendments to laws affecting charity that critical journalists and activists are calling unconstitutional and potentially damaging to their work.
If sent to parliament and passed, the amendments would regulate how people can make and receive donations -- changes that could reach beyond charity, depending on how they might be worded and interpreted.
What is more, the so far closed-doors discussions of the Culture and Information Ministry's working group on the topic are taking place in the middle of a noisy scandal that has cast fundraising in a bad light.
Local media has been feasting on the rise-and-fall story of jailed businesswoman and charity co-founder Perizat Qairat.
It is certainly a colorful one.
Qairat's social media accounts portray a jet-setting lifestyle in which luxury-filled visits to the United Arab Emirates, expensive tastes in fashion, and a spoiled canine all feature heavily.
The Agency for Financial Monitoring on November 14 alleged this lifestyle was paid for by around $3 million in contributions by Kazakh citizens to the Biz Birgemiz (We Are Together) charity led by Qairat during its fundraising drive for victims of historic floods in Kazakhstan in the spring.
The agency provided a list of top-end vehicles, real estate, and holidays it said the 33-year-old had purchased with these funds and then followed up with another statement on her alleged embezzlements during another fundraising drive for Palestinians.
The court will decide if she is guilty and, since courts in Kazakhstan rarely disagree with the positions taken by investigators, Qairat might find herself up against it.
But the fact her arrest has coincided with reports about the working group's activities is already setting off alarm bells among journalists and activists dependent on donations for their work. This is "in no way a coincidence," according to Vadim Boreiko, a veteran journalist and the host of the popular Hyperborei YouTube channel.
"These amendments have not been passed, but they are already threatening small independent media that work overwhelmingly thanks to donations," Boreiko said, citing a sudden drop-off in donations to Hyperborei since Qairat's detention was announced.
As such, the agency's comment in its November 14 press release that the case amounted to a "breach of public trust in civil society" is already proving prophetic, Boreiko noted with sarcasm.
'Stimulating And Developing Charity'
The Culture and Information Ministry has said the working group was established to develop proposals and new strategies for "stimulating and developing charity" in Kazakhstan.
In response to an official inquiry from RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, the ministry said amendments to the law were still under discussion and "will be submitted for public consultation at a later stage."
The ministry has also reassured multiple media outlets that "the issue of restricting individuals and legal entities from making charitable contributions, including in critical situations, is not being considered."
But a draft document of the amendments that RFE/RL's Kazakh Service was able to obtain raises doubts about that position.
Kazakhstan's charity law was adopted in 2015 but has been tweaked several times since then.
The latest proposals to change the law and laws related to it are ostensibly being made to bring Kazakh legislation in line with the best practices of the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization that fights money laundering and terrorist financing.
One proposal currently being studied by the working group calls for the introduction of steep fines (as much as $800) for crowdfunders who indicate a personal bank account when calling for funds "for the benefit of other people."
Lesser fines would be applicable to individuals who begin and conclude fundraising drives without notifying the authorities of their activities and goals.
These measures are needed to "reduce the number of fraudulent transactions," according to the authors of the document.
Along with fraudsters, mobile donations are also the main method by which activists, journalists, and regular citizens receive support.
It has less relevance to charities like Biz Birgemiz, which is a registered entity with its own bank accounts.
But those types of organizations would be affected by several other proposals being discussed by the working group.
One of those is a proposal to amend a different law -- on civil defense -- to determine who can and cannot raise funds during natural and manmade emergencies in a given region.
If passed, "the choice of a charitable organization for collecting funds should be assigned to the local executive body," the document reads.
A Scandal Made In The Ruling Party?
The drive to overhaul the sector would perhaps be generating less pessimism if it were not spearheaded by the Culture and Information Ministry and its high-powered minister, Aida Balaeva.
In August, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev signed off on a new law on mass media drawn up by the same ministry.
The law has introduced new restrictions around media accreditation, limiting journalists to working for a single outlet and increasing the ease with which authorities can suspend accreditation.
One pretext for suspension could be perceived infringements at press conferences and other settings where officials and journalists interact after Balaeva complained of "inappropriate" behavior from journalists in these settings.
Kazakh authorities have a standard form of viewing fundraising efforts negatively when government critics are involved.
The most famous recent example of this is the situation surrounding the women's and children's rights group NeMolchi.KZ (Don't Be Silent).
Last year, police said an arrest warrant had been issued for Dina Smailova, the group's leader, in connection with an embezzlement case.
Smailova has herself said hundreds of individuals who donated to her in the past have been called in for questioning as officers attempt to build a case against her.
NeMolchi.KZ is known for defending women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence. Several of the group's recent cases have involved perpetrators who are state officials or members of law enforcement.
Human Rights Watch in February called the charges "dubious" and raised concerns that the authorities were on "a fishing expedition for evidence of wrongdoing by Smailova," who lives in de facto exile but continues to source donations to cover the work of Kazakh-based staff and lawyers to represent victims of abuse.
Smailova argues that authorities' attempts to tighten regulations surrounding charitable work are unconstitutional, restricting the fundamental right of citizens to dispose of their assets in the way they choose.
While the scandal surrounding Qairat and Biz Birgemiz is a bad look for the local charitable sector, it has also somewhat backfired on the government.
That is after journalists from the Ratel.kz news agency identified at least four people with current or past connections to the ruling Amanat party (formerly Nur Otan) on the charity's documents of incorporation.
To date there have been no announcements that any of these co-founders are being investigated alongside Qairat, whose entrepreneurial sidelines include a luxury flower shop and a meat export business.
A report from RFE/RL's Kazakh Service on November 14 recalled that during the massive floods in northern and western Kazakhstan in April, Qairat published an Instagram post calling on President Toqaev to "react promptly and travel to emergency sites to avoid the death of his people" and to cancel international engagements "as presidents of other countries do during emergencies."
Qairat promptly deleted the post and published a new one, apologizing and asking the country to unite around Toqaev.
Whether her earlier, unsolicited advice played any role in her fate is unclear.
But Amanat was forced to respond to the reports of its members' involvement in the charity.
Lawmaker and Amanat executive secretary Elnur Beisembaev acknowledged on November 20 that two serving party members were among the charity's founders but denied any institutional connections between Amanat and Biz Birgemiz.
