Germany cuts funding to Egyptian women’s rights organization for criticizing Israel

Germany has cut funding to an anti-human trafficking program operated by an Egyptian civil society organization after its chair called for a stop to Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Lawyer Azza Soliman, who chairs the board of trustees at the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), told Mada Masr that the German government has withheld funding since the beginning of November. 

Concurrently, Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), said that his organization would no longer cooperate on development projects with the German government.

Speaking to Mada Masr, the heads of both organizations condemned Germany's failure to intervene and prevent Israel's ongoing onslaught on Gaza, which has killed over 17,000 Palestinians so far.

Soliman said that the German embassy had originally sought and obtained approval from the Social Solidarity Ministry for CEWLA’s project, which is intended to support women survivors of trafficking, on the grounds of shared feminist values, Soliman said.

However, CEWLA stopped receiving funds after Soliman joined the heads of 254 non-governmental organizations from around the world in signing an October 24 statement calling for an end to the war on Gaza and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the Occupation.

In October, Soliman, a recipient of the Frenco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in 2020, also publicly denounced the positions of both European governments regarding the Occupation’s onslaught against civilians in Gaza, in a letter she co-wrote with nine other laureates of the award.

When asked by Mada Masr to comment on Soliman's case, the German embassy declined, but said, “one of our criteria for official funding is that organizations must not affiliate with the BDS movement or otherwise call for boycott against Israel.”

Soliman said that she will not seek to appeal the decision. “We are in a decadent and critical historical stage in which the masks are falling off the faces of all supporters of human rights,” she said.

The decision represents a double standard from Germany, she continued. She added that the country is attempting to whitewash its shameful history toward Jewish people by turning a blind eye to Palestinian suffering.

Meanwhile, Bahgat has also decided to withdraw his candidacy for the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, whose 2023 recipients are set to be announced on International Human Rights Day, December 10.

Germany had been financing a project to provide free legal assistance to victims of human rights violations in Egypt in cooperation with EIPR.

Bahgat told Mada Masr that Germany has doubled its arms exports to the Occupation to be used in killing civilians in Gaza, making it second only to the United States in its response to the war.

According to German news agency DPA, the federal government's arms exports to Israel in 2023 surged over 10 times the rate recorded in 2022. Since October 7, final approval has been awarded for 185 arms export applications.

Germany has cemented its position, both in the European Union and the UN General Assembly, at the forefront of the pro-Israel block — along with Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Austria — and has voted to reject a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Bahgat added.

EIPR informed the German embassy in writing on October 25 that it will end all forms of cooperation with the embassy in protest of its position on the war in Gaza, he said.

Bahgat also noted that he informed the German ambassador in Cairo during the third week of the war on Gaza that Berlin’s position regarding the war casts huge doubt on the space of shared values between Germany and human rights activists, feminists, and independent media in Egypt.