A non-governmental organization (NGO) that is critical of the government's actions in the country at hand receives a letter from the local tax office, indicating that its public-benefit status has been revoked on the grounds of its involvement in political activities. The decision involves 90 percent of the organization's revenues, which, as a result, threatens its very existence. After a court has reviewed and closed the case in favor of the NGO, the central government intervenes, insisting that the judgment should be reviewed. For the time being, the organization's public-benefit status has been revoked.
Annika Elena Poppe and Jonas Wolff show important parallels between the German case of ATTAC and the challenges that civil society organizations around the world face.
Read their analysis as a commentary on the website of the International Consortium on Closing Civic Space (ICon) housed at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) or on our PRIF BLOG.
The text is also available in German:
Download (pdf, 560kb): Poppe, Annika Elena/Wolff, Jonas (2017): Schlechtes Vorbild Deutschland. Der Fall Attac im Licht globaler Einschränkungen zivilgesellschaftlicher Handlungsspielräume, PRIF Spotlight 2/2017, Frankfurt/M.