House Bill 9495 (Part 3): Birds of a Feather
Amid an international outcry alleging harsh treatment of pro-democracy protesters and bystanders, the Hong Kong government needed a quieter way to stifle dissent. It found one in its financial crime laws.
So when an organization collected donations to support critics of the local and national governments, Hong Kong police charged them with money laundering, saying they had used the funds to buy investment products instead. (Notwithstanding, there is no indication that they ever returned that money to donors after it was seized.)
Regardless of its merits, simply making such a claim is enough to doom an organization, since it will effectively force banks to lock their accounts. And because this forced pro-democracy organizers to manage donations and expenses using their personal bank accounts instead, it further bolstered money laundering claims.
Justice delayed is more than justice denied – it is the very point. When Uganda jailed a human rights lawyer for money laundering, despite obliquely admitting it had no evidence to support the charge, it revealed its cards: it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it just matters that the tactic works to scare off would-be critics.
Such an outcome is well known to proponents of House Bill 9495, as they have seen it happen before. Indeed, the provisions in this purported tax bill seem like a nod to tactics used by autocrats around the world.
Angus King, a co-sponsor of the Senate’s version of an earlier iteration of the bill, is a member of the Congressional Executive commission that questioned the freezing in Hong Kong of “the bank accounts of activists, independent media, and civic groups, many which were forced to close or end operations.” As that query pointed out, such activity has the potential to blunt “freedom of assembly, speech, press, or … democratic outcomes.”
But if borrowing from China were not enough, the U.S. president’s unilateral ability under the bill to designate an organization as “terrorist” resembles a similar law in the Philippines, which has been used to prosecute and freeze the bank accounts of rural nuns.
Vietnam and Venezuela have similarly exploited vague tax laws to suppress activists and journalists.
And the letter by two members of Congress to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, fishing for any suspicious financial transactions by the Gates Foundation and other nonprofits, resembles a similar tactic from Uganda.
Financial crime laws have been abused by authoritarian states to silence journalists and critics who exposed government corruption, including Alexei Navalny in Russia, Zhanbolat Mamay in Kazakhstan, and members of Abzas Media in Azerbaijan.
But as a report by the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute points out, the most ruthless of regimes don’t really need a pretext to quash political participation. Abuses are more likely to occur in regimes on the margins, like Tanzania or Morocco or Guatemala, who may wish to suppress dissent while also maintaining a democratic pretense.
The United States now risks joining their ranks.
Note: This is the last of a three-part series discussing the potential impact of the bill. In prior posts, we discussed the powers it affords with little oversight, and its broader impact on civil society. |
President and Founder, TRACE