A/HRC/44/50/Add.4 uphold the human rights of LGBTI persons. The demonstration took place more than 20 days after the Ankara Administrative Appeals Court lifted the ban that had been introduced by the Governor of Ankara under the state of emergency. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur had pointed out, that the same Court had ruled that the ban was unlawful and restricted rights and freedoms in unconditional, vague, and disproportionate ways. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur stresses that peaceful protests should be subject to a notification regime, rather than an authorisation regime, and even failure to notify authorities of a protest does not, in and of itself, render a protest unlawful. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of Turkey for its response dated 9 April 2020. However, he must respectfully disagree that the responsibility lies with the management of the university, especially when security forces disperse and arrest demonstrators. Moreover, he still considers the use of pepper spray excessive, despite the explanations of the government, given that the protesters were peaceful and the government at no point mentioned fear for the safety of its security forces or any other persons present. Freedom of association 100. This report provides observations to communications sent by the Special Rapporteur concerning the right to freedom of association to Kzrgzyztan and the Russian Federation, during the reporting period. 101. The Special Rapporteur expressed concern over the introduction of draft law No. 628018/19 in Kzrgzyztan, which would introduce amendments to the Law on NonCommercial Organizations (KGZ 1/2020). At the time of writing of the report the draft law was still in consultation. The Special Rapporteur thinks that if adopted, the draft law may have a significant and detrimental impact on the operations of all civil society organizations in Kyrgyzstan, including those that provide essential services. In his view, the amendments would unnecessarily and disproportionally restrict the right to freedom of association, as provided by Article 22 of ICCPR. The draft law would add additional reporting requirements to the existing annual income and expense reports. NGOs would need to detail the size and structure of their income and expenditures as well as the number of employees, volunteers and their remuneration. If NGOs fail to fully comply, they would face liquidation within a year. State authorities would also be allowed to undertake ad hoc inspections of NGO premises and request additional documentation and other information. The Special Rapporteur notes, that while States may have a legitimate interest in establishing reporting requirements to registered associations to ensure their compliance with the law, these requirements should not limit associations’ functional autonomy and operation, by adding costly and protracted burdens. The listed new reporting requirements provided in the draft law duplicate existing reporting requirements to the Ministry of Justice, which may be burdensome for organizations, especially for small organizations that do not have the same financial capacities and resources as larger ones. Unfortunately the Special Rapporteur regrets that he has not yet received a reply from the Government of Kyrgyzstan. 102. The Special Rapporteur expresses his serious concerns over raids, seizures of property, prosecution, dissolution and interdiction relating to the human rights NGOs Justice Initiative, Memorial, Center of Support for the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia without Torture and People in Need (RUS 9/2019). Many of the actions by the security forces during the raids and seizures of properties seem to have involved irregularities and dubious practices. One of the raids seems to have been conducted without presenting a search warrant. In a different case, failure to comply with certain administrative formalities, such as outdated legal address of the organisation and non-compliance of the Charter with new legislation was used as a reason to close the NGO down The Special Rapporteur considers the closure of the NGO to be disproportionate punishment for administrative irregularities of this kind. Multiple of the NGOs mentioned above have been branded as “foreign agents” or “undesirable organisations”, which has made it either very difficult or almost impossible to run these NGOs without fear of persecution, fines or imprisonment. The Special Rapporteur considers the measures to be aimed at stopping the organisations from continuing their human rights work. Moreover, the actions taken against them appear manifestly disproportionate in regard to the administrative irregularities upon which they are, for the most part, based. He also expresses his concern about the consistently negative effects of the implementation of the “Foreign Agents Law” and the “Law on undesirable agents”. The Special Rapporteur 23