Foreign Ministry fires back at international condemnation of reopened NGO case

The Foreign Ministry has issued a statement defending the decision to reopen a 2011 case against local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) accused of unlawfully accepting foreign funds. Egypt is in no way cracking down on civil society, the statement insisted, arguing that those claiming the state is repressing civil liberties need to check their sources. 

“There have been comments from official foreign circles accusing the Egyptian government of cracking down on the freedom of civil society using shameful generalizations, and there is no concrete evidence backing their claims,” said the statement.

These critics “have direct interests in promoting these impressions,” the ministry warned, and their motives must be questioned.

The case in question dates back to 2011, when 43 workers for foreign NGOs were charged with operating an organization and receiving funds from a foreign government without a license. In June 2013, all the defendants — including 17 US citizens, other foreigners and Egyptians — were sentenced from one to five years in prison, many of them in absentia. The court also ordered the closure of the NGOs, including the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House.

Local NGOs implicated in the investigations were not brought to trial at that time, nor was it clear if they would be at a future date. However, on Thursday the Cairo Criminal Court reviewed a ruling to freeze prominent human rights activists Hossam Baghat and Gamal Eid’s assets, a move that local media claimed represented a reopening of the 2011 case. The court ruled to postpone its decision until April 20.

The decision to reopen the case against local NGOs, along with other recent actions against human rights organizations and those who work for them — including the closure or attempted closure of several organizations, asset freezes, travel bans, gag orders and threats of prosecution and trial — have provoked international criticism of Egypt’s government. The foreign ministries of the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations and international rights organizations like Amnesty International and the New York-based Human Rights Watch, have all condemned the recent crackdowns on civil society.

People who say Egypt does not create a climate conducive to civil society development are forgetting that the people implicated in the reopened NGO case represent a very limited section of civil society, the ministry argued. There are more than 47,000 civil society organizations operating in Egypt and nearly 100 foreign NGOs, the statement asserted, claiming that Egypt encourages the legal work of all NGOs and is only attempting to investigate organizations that broke the law.

The ministry asked if recent criticisms truly aim at protecting the rights and freedoms of Egyptian citizens, or whether “certain persons and groups” are working to promote the interests of other countries “to manipulate popular will in order to undermine and destabilize the country.”