After years of legal limbo, civil society workers set to receive court decision in April

On Saturday the Cairo Criminal Court said it would rule on the appeal brought by 14 civil society workers, lawyers and activists against their state-imposed travel bans at its next hearing, scheduled for  April 23. This would be the first adjudicated court decision for the plaintiffs, most of whom have had their assets frozen in connection with the case known as the “civil society organizations case,” in which none of them have been tried. 

The prosecution has not yet provided any legal justification for the travel bans, according to lawyers.

At the hearing, the prosecution presented a letter stating that it had received a court order from the investigative judge in the case, 173/2011, preventing eight of the 14 individuals from traveling. No court orders were issued for the remaining six plaintiffs in the case, nor did the prosecution send their names to the passport authorities, though all 14 had been barred from travel.

Lawyer Maha Youssef told Mada Masr that during the previous three hearings, the court asked the prosecution to go back to the investigative judge and ask him to provide reasoning for preventing the plaintiffs from traveling, but the letter, which was the only document provided, only listed their names. 

According to a copy of the letter obtained by Mada Masr, the investigative judge had requested a travel ban for Hossam Bahgat (who is also a Mada Masr reporter), Gamal Eid, Mohamed Zaree, Hossam Aly, Ahmed Ghoneim, Yasser Abdelgawad, Mozn Hassan, and Esraa Abd El Fattah, who is currently held on remand in relation to a different case. 

In previous hearings, the plaintiff’s lawyers have argued that the travel bans, issued between four and five years ago, were unconstitutional and have exceeded the two-year time limit imposed by the law. The plaintiffs only learned of their travel bans when they were prevented from leaving the country at the airport.

The events of the case date back to December 2011, when police raided the headquarters of a number of civil society organizations. The case was then divided into two parts. The first was concerned with foreign organizations operating in Egypt, in which the Cairo Criminal Court issued prison sentences ranging from two to five years against 32 defendants on charges of illegally receiving foreigh funds and operating without a license. In the retrial, judge Mohamed al-Feqqi overturned the verdict, finding all defendants innocent. 

The second part of the case is concerned with local civil society organizations, including the plaintiffs in yesterday’s hearing. It was assigned to the investigative judge Hisham Abdel Meguid on March 15, 2016 by the Public Prosecution. It has not yet been referred to the criminal court. 

The plaintiffs not named in the letter submitted to the court yesterday are Nasser Amin, Hoda Abdelwahad, Ahmed Ragheb, Alaa Eddin Abdeltawab, Azza Soleiman, and Malek Adly.