A/HRC/23/39 Recommendation 8 does not adequately take into account that States already have other means, such as financial surveillance and police cooperation, to effectively address the terrorism financing threat. Moreover, FATF fails to provide for specific measures to protect the civil society sector from undue restrictions to their right to freedom of association by States asserting that their measures are in compliance with FATF Recommendation 8. The Special Rapporteur insists on the need to combat terrorism, but he warns against the implementation of restrictive measures – such as FATF Recommendation 8 – which have been misused by States to violate international law. 26. Fundamentally, the Special Rapporteur believes civil society organizations play a significant role in combatting terrorism. By their direct connections with the population and their prodigious work in, inter alia, poverty reduction, peacebuilding, humanitarian assistance, human rights and social justice, including in politically complex environments, civil society plays a crucial role against the threat of terrorism. Unduly restrictive measures, which can lead donors to withdraw support from associations operating in difficult environments, can in fact undermine invaluable CSO initiatives in the struggle against terrorism and extremism, and ultimately have adverse consequences on peace and security. 2. State sovereignty against foreign interference 27. In recent years, the protection of State sovereignty or of the State’s traditional values against external interference has also been increasingly invoked to restrict foreign funding or to launch slander offensives against those receiving foreign funding. Foreign funding to civil society has been deliberately depicted as a new form of imperialism or neocolonialism and recipients have been subject to defamation, stigmatization and acts of harassment. This tendency has a serious impact on the work of civil society actors, not to mention their ability to access funding as it deters them from seeking foreign funding. This situation is particularly alarming for associations promoting human rights and democratic reforms who have been accused of “treason” or of “promoting regime change”. 28. For instance, in the Russian Federation, a new law adopted in July 2012 requires foreign-funded non-commercial organizations engaging in “political activities” – which is broadly defined as attempts to influence official decision-making or to shape public opinion for this objective – to register as organizations “performing the functions of foreign agents”, which in Russian is synonymous with “foreign spy”. The adoption of this law has been followed up by a series of audits of organizations, including prominent human rights organizations. In Egypt, the State-owned press has campaigned against civil society organizations, branding them as foreign agents due to foreign funding that some of them allegedly received. In Ethiopia, legislation not only prohibits associations working in rightsbased areas from receiving more than 10 per cent of their funding from foreign sources, but also requires associations to allocate at least 70 per cent of their budget to programme activities and no more than 30 per cent to administrative costs, which are broadly defined. The enforcement of these provisions has a devastating impact on individuals’ ability to form and operate associations effectively, and has been the subject of serious alarm expressed by several United Nations treaty bodies.13 In the same vein, a law on associations, adopted in January 2012 in Algeria, prohibits associations from receiving funding from legations and foreign non-governmental organizations, unless a “cooperative relation duly established with the foreign entity” – subject to prior authorization from the relevant authorities – is in place. Serious concerns about this legislation were notably 13 2010), p. 13. CAT/C/ETH/CO/1, para. 34; CCPR/C/ETH/CO/1, para. 25. 9