ECNL has been leading co-ordination and advocacy efforts on the global level and trained relevant global organisations to send messages to FATF and its member states - also through UN bodies - that Turkey’s latest regulation of CSOs is not compliant either with human rights or FATF standards.
As a reminder, the law on Preventing Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Turkey from December 2020 mandates changes in 6 separate laws. The government used FATF Recommendations as one of the arguments for its adoption. As we reported earlier, the law will substantially increase control over aid collection and likely restrict or prevent civil society from raising funds over the internet or offline.
These concerns have been addressed by the UN Special Rapporteurs earlier this year and now they are also addressed by FATF.
Increased monitoring by the FATF
Turkey has been placed under increased monitoring by the FATF, and committed to swiftly resolving the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed time frames. The list of countries under increased monitoring is often externally referred to as the “grey list”.
In a summary available here, the FATF enumerates what issues remain and what Turkey had committed to resolving, among other: "fully implement a risk-based approach to supervision of non-profit organisations to prevent their abuse for terrorist financing, conducting outreach to a broad range of non profit organizations (NPOs) in the sector and engaging with their feedback, ensuring that sanctions applied are proportionate to any violations, and taking steps to ensure that supervision does not disrupt or discourage legitimate NPO activity, such as fundraising."
Furthermore, the FATF pledged to “continue monitoring Turkey’s oversight of the NPO sector and urged Turkey to apply the risk-based approach to supervision of NPOs in line with the FATF Standards.”
This means that Turkey did not convince the FATF their legislative restrictive actions on civil society actually were effective means of complying with the FATF standards on countering terrorism financing. On the contrary, resolving this issue– in line with a risk-based approach and not disrupting or discouraging legitimate civil society activities – is now one of conditions to exit the FATF grey list.
Clear message to countries
This is also an excellent message for other countries too: if they over-regulate civil society, they will not be able to claim being compliant with international standards. In fact, they might end up degraded because of disrupting or discouraging legitimate CSO activities and not respecting a risk-based approach.
Concerted advocacy efforts
In addition, it is a useful pathway for undertaking global and national advocacy co-ordination between the Global NPO Coalition on FATF, diverse organisations and national level CSOs, who usually do not work on these topics. ECNL will continue to support, co-ordinate and strategise with global CSOs and national level partners to help country efforts with the implementation of FATF standards without harming civil society.