October 26, 2016. In his article entitled “Defending Freedom of Religion and Belief as a Matter of Principle,” Dominic Zoehrer summarizes the FOREF presentation at the OSCE gathering in Warsaw. One topic of concern to human rights watchdogs is the infiltration of “GONGOs”—government-organized non-governmental organizations.
Mr. Zoehrer writes that these “NGOs that are fully financed by respective governments” shamelessly take their seats alongside legitimate NGOs in the civil society section and seek to make a mockery of the serious issues presented there. Of even greater irony is that these sham “NGOs” infiltrated the forum where legitimate non-governmental organizations present strong censure of bad government practices—notably GONGOs—to delegations from 57 states of the OSCE region. READ MORE