Human rights groups fear Egypt crackdown
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Human rights groups in Egypt are braced for a government crackdown after a deadline on Monday to register themselves under a Mubarak-era law they say threatens civil society, or face penalties that could include prison.
Leading local organisations that highlight human rights violations, discrimination and other abuses fear their work could be crippled under laws giving the government tight control over their fundraising and activities.
Many such groups survive on foreign financing from Western governments and donors and, once registered, would also have to obtain official authorisation each time they received money from abroad.
The drive to compel non-government organisations, which have been operating as companies or law firms, to register under the 2002 Law on Associations and Foundations is seen as another sign of the fast-shrinking space for dissent in Egypt since last year’s overthrow of the elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and the subsequent election of former army chief, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as his successor.
Domestic and international groups complain of widespread human rights violations as the authorities continue to clamp down on supporters of Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, now designated a terrorist organisation.
In addition to thousands of imprisoned Islamists, scores of secular activists are also languishing in jail for defying a strict new law on public demonstrations.
Khaled Mansour, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a research and advocacy group, said: “You cannot accept a law that will turn an NGO into an annexe of one of the ministries because this will mean the closure of civil society.
“It will mean a bureaucrat can sack the board of an organisation or veto research on torture.”
The new pressure comes amid continuous vilification of human rights groups in state and private Egyptian media. Activists are regularly denigrated as a “fifth column” and as disloyal Egyptians who receive foreign funding to undermine the state, defend terrorists or tarnish the country’s image.
Such accusations have resonated with a public unsettled by the recent surge in deadly attacks by Islamist extremists, including an assault in the Sinai peninsula last month in which 31 soldiers died.
A bomb left in a train station in the town of Menouf, in the Nile delta, killed two policemen and a civilian on Wednesday. Hours later, in Cairo, an explosive device placed under a bridge injured a pedestrian.
Khaled Sultan, undersecretary for associations at the Social Solidarity ministry, denied allegations that the government was trying to shut down civil society.
“There are 45,000 associations registered under the 2002 law,” he said. “It cannot be right to say we are limiting the space for civil society just because of 100 groups that are being asked to come under the law.”
He said that any groups that failed to register would be contacted after the deadline so “their rights and obligations” could be explained. “It will be a dialogue. There will be no repression,” Mr Sultan insisted.
In depth
After the army’s ousting of the country’s first elected leader, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, its former chief has inherited a divided country
Further reading
Civil rights groups have already been alarmed by the tightening last month of Article 78 of the penal code to impose life sentences and hefty fines on anyone deemed to be receiving foreign funding to commit a range of crimes, including the vaguely-worded “disturbing social peace”.
Several rights activists have already left Egypt for fear of arrest.
“If you add the uncertainty to the smear campaign, it is creating an environment of fear at a time when we do not need to focus on ourselves but on the rights violations in the country,” said Mr Mansour.
Memories are still fresh of police raids three years ago on the offices of local and US pro-democracy organisations with links to the US Congress, which led to the conviction of 16 expatriates and dozens of Egyptian staff on charges of using foreign funds to foment unrest. While the foreigners were eventually flown out after the US paid a large bail requirement, the Egyptians received suspended sentences.
But many prominent civil society actors remain defiant. Negad Boraie, a human rights lawyer and senior partner at law firm United Group, said: “I expect to go to jail but . . . if this is the price I pay for defending my principles and defending other people, I will consider it a price worth paying.”
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