WASHINGTON, April 20, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The human rights group Freedom House has
praised the Bush administration for requesting a 17 percent increase in funding
for programs that promote democracy around the world. But its report,
"Supporting Freedom's Advocates?" also complains that Washington seems to be shifting its emphasis away from individual leaders and nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) that promote democracy. RFE/RL correspondent Andrew F.
Tully spoke with Amanda Abrams, Freedom House's director of communications,
about this apparent shift.

RFE/RL: If it were up to Freedom House, where
would the U.S. government be focusing its efforts to support overseas
democracies?

Amanda Abrams: In repressive societies, and in those that are becoming
increasingly repressive, the real way to attack what's going on is to support
the NGOs and the human rights activists, because these folks are really the
substance of the movement that can maybe reverse things.

RFE/RL: How has the United States shifted its focus?

Abrams: For example, they are working with the judiciary -- which of
course is worthwhile -- working with legislatures, working with the legislative
branch. So, sort of going more from the top down and looking more at governance
issues. Which are certainly quite valid, but they're only part of the picture.

RFE/RL: Your report expresses concern about the need for U.S. aid to
individuals and NGOs in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. Can you
elaborate?

Abrams: It definitely seems that President [Vladimir] Putin has done --
is doing -- what he can to stifle independent voices. And there have been
increasing restrictions -- particularly the

NGO law and other activities -- so that even with [the presence of]
opposition parties, there's been less and less freedom for opposition voices to
be heard. This, we think, is really not combating the issue at all.

RFE/RL: Does Freedom House have any other special concerns in the former
Soviet Union?

Abrams: In Uzbekistan, for example,

Umida Niyazova is a journalist and human rights activist who's been in
custody since mid-January. She's somebody who could get up to 30 years [in
prison]. Her charges are illegal border crossing and possessing illegal
literature, which is essentially Human Rights Watch documents, and another
charge that's very similar.

And basically she's just a human rights activist who's, we think, being targeted
specifically for those activities. So, someone like her -- there are various
things that she might need, and certainly before we even get to the point of
someone like her being arrested, these folks need our support. And often that
support is monetary or in resources.

RFE/RL: Had the U.S. government supported Niyazova until now?

Abrams: I think off and on. I know she [Niyazova] had worked with
international human rights groups. I don't even know, frankly, if the
infrastructure exists yet [in the U.S. government] to really reach out to human
rights activists to the degree that we could and on, sometimes, an emergency
basis. There are some funds that are there for working with human rights
activists on an emergency basis, but often it may be limited just to legal
defense funds. So if this [Niyazova case] was seen as important [to the U.S.
government], we would want to see a lot more flexibility in some of the funding
tools for these human rights defenders.

RFE/RL: So far, we've focused on Freedom House's concerns about the
proposed U.S. budget for promoting democracy. Are there any positive elements in
the budget?

Abrams: In a general sense, yes. We're seen an increase in democracy
funding around the world, which is great, and we're also seeing increases in
certain regions, but the former Soviet Union isn't one of the regions that's
really receiving an increase, I'd say, generally speaking.

Central Asia, for example, has been sort of overlooked and is generally going
down [in terms of funding]. The Caucasus -- we're urging more funding in a
general sense, not so much [for] Armenia, but [for] Azerbaijan and Georgia. Even
Ukraine -- we're saying, "Don't forget about it."

So each country has a different situation, but in a number of cases, either
they're being seen, we think, as lost causes, like Uzbekistan, or political
issues, like Russia, or already have graduated [viewed as already have graduated
to democracy], like Georgia and Ukraine. And with those two, we don't think they
have quite graduated yet, and they're not quite ready to be left alone.

RFE/RL: Do you mean to say that the United States, in a way, is shifting
its focus away from the former Soviet Union on human rights and democracy
issues?

Abrams: Perhaps. It seems they have done some reprioritizing. There's
been increased democracy funding for Africa, and we very much congratulate that.
But perhaps they've decided to consolidate a bit their funding and their
programming to some of the countries that maybe matter more or that there's a
better chance of affecting. So that may be, to some degree, why there's been a
bit of a shift.