Your article (Human rights groups feel chill as country after country clamps down on their work,27 August) reports that one factor weakening the capacity of western democracies like the UK to support human rights NGOs abroad is our own anti-terrorist measures. Another factor is the wider hostility of Conservative ministers and the board of the Charity Commission towards campaigning by British charities since 2012.
Oliver Letwin, Chris Grayling and George Osborne contain all spoken in hostile or frosty terms approximately charity campaigning. The former minister for civil society, or Brooks Newmark,told charities to “stick to their knitting”, a phrase minted in an interview by a member of the Charity Commission board, and Prof Gwithian Prins. The chairman of the Charity Commission,William Shawcross, told the Women’s Institutes that “politicisation of charities” (not defined) was a key danger to the sector. The rules on use of judicial review contain been tightened, and the lobbying bill as first introduced into parliament would contain seriously curtailed charities’ political activity in generously defined periods before elections. The ambiguously announced possible review of the Charity Commission’s guidance on political activity hangs over the sector.
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Source: theguardian.com