What’s next in Case 173? 4 NGOs, 5 civil society workers in the clear but investigations continue

Though investigations into four non-governmental organizations were dropped due to insufficient evidence on Monday — 10 years after they and an unknown number of other NGOs were accused of receiving foreign funding to harm the state — other civil society workers and organizations continue to face questioning in Case 173/2011.

Lawyer Negad al-Borai was among five civil society workers who have faced restrictions on travel and on disposal of their assets for years in relation to the case while their institutions were held under legal suspicion, and had the restrictions against them dropped in the judge’s Monday decision.

He told Mada Masr that Manal al-Tiby, director of the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights and a former member of the National Council for Human Rights, was questioned by the judge on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the director of the Center for the Right to Education, Abdel Hafiz Tayel, was summoned for questioning next week, said Borai. 

Going forward, Borai said that the situation is still critical for civil society in Egypt, though he said that it looks as though the state is trying to “bridge the gap” with civil society by releasing some defendants and moving to close the NGO foreign funding case. Borai said that the investigating judge told him during a three-hour investigation session in August that the case could be closed within two weeks.

Lawyer Azza Soliman, who was questioned in the case last week and had restrictions against her lifted on Monday, told Mada Masr she only had to answer two questions: whether her organization had a website and if her organization was laundering money or financing terrorist groups. Soliman said she thought that investigations may be closed against NGOs on an individual basis. 

Yet Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, who was also questioned in August about his organization’s funding, thought it unlikely that all of the organizations would get off without charges. 

Other defendants in the case have been summoned for questioning since July, including director of the Nazra Center for Feminist Studies, Mozn Hassan, and director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Hossam Bahgat, for the first time since the case was opened in 2011. All said that the investigations centered on information prepared by the National Security Agency that they described as unsubstantiated by evidence.

At least 15 defendants also included in the case have not yet been questioned, including the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Mohamed Zaree, Ahmed Ragheb of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, and others, according to Borai. 

At least 12 more civil society figures are also still banned from travel and have their assets frozen in relation to organizations they were related to that are still being investigated in the case, including Mozn Hassan, Hossam Bahgat, Yasser Abdel Gawad, Alaa Eddin Abdel Tawab, Nasser Amin and Hoda Abdel Wahab, Ahmed Ragheb and Ahmed Ghoneim.

The judge ruled on Monday that there was insufficient evidence to press criminal charges against the United Group law firm, Lawyers for Justice and Peace, the Egyptian Association for the Advancement of Community Participation and the Egyptian Democratic Institute.

The judge also decided to lift travel bans and asset freezes imposed against Negad al-Borai, director of the United Group, Azza Soliman, founder of Lawyers for Justice and Peace, Magdy Abdel Hamid, president of the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement, Hossam Eddin Ali, the director of the Egyptian Democratic Institute, and Esraa Abdel Fattah, former projects director at the institute. 

In late 2011, the Egyptian authorities raided 17 NGOs working on democracy and rights issues. Two years later, an Egyptian court gave orders for several international NGOs to be closed and handed down sentences to the defendants on charges of operating illegally in the country.

Since then, scores of Egyptian NGOs, rights workers, and lawyers have been in limbo as the defendants were banned from travel and had their assets frozen but were never summoned for questioning. 

A breakthrough in the case in 2020 came when investigating judge Ali Mokhtar decided to close investigations into 20 NGOs due to the absence of crime and insufficient evidence, and to cancel the asset and travel restrictions for people working at those organizations. Sources at the time, however, told Mada Masr that the decision included NGOs that were not even part of Case 173/2011. A similar decision was issued for another 20 NGOs in March 2021, and for another 18 NGOs in May.