Interrogation of Nazra director postponed, lawyers not permitted to review case files

The interrogation of Mozn Hassan, executive director of the Nazra For Feminist Studies center, was postponed, according to a statement released by the organization on Tuesday morning.

Hassan went to New Cairo Court on Tuesday morning to appear before an investigative judge, as per a summons she received last week — in relation to the recently reopened 2011 case against a number of non-governmental organizations accused of illegally receiving foreign funding and operating without a license.

When Hassan’s lawyers went to meet with the judge and review the case files, they were informed the interrogation had been delayed, and that they would be able to examine the files at a later date, after which Hassan would be re-summoned for investigation.

Hassan’s lawyers originally had an appointment with the judge to review the case files on March 27, according to Nazra. Yet, they were informed no one was available to examine the files with them on both Sunday March 27 and Monday March 28.

Three other Nazra employees have also been questioned about the nature of their work, but Hassan is the first official defendant in the re-opened case from the organization.

The case includes prominent human rights defenders Hossam Baghat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arab Network for Human Rights. Both attended a court session when a judge was due to review a recommendation to freeze their assets, but the decision was delayed to April 20. Both Eid and Baghat discovered they had travel bans while attempting to travel through Cairo Airport.

The case has attracted international criticism from both politicians and human rights groups, who see it as symptomatic of a larger state crackdown on civil society, which includes measures like organizational closures, travel bans, asset freezes, gag orders, and threats of prosecution and trials.

Forty-three national and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, rallied in solidarity with Nazra and Hassan ahead of her scheduled interrogation, strongly condemning the targeting of civil society organizations, which they asserted is an “atrocious manifestation of the Egyptian government's crackdown on civil society, and women human rights defenders.”

A number of Egyptian feminist organizations also released a statement in solidarity with Nazra stating, “We demand the halt of targeting rights civil society organizations, especially those concerned with women's rights. We also consider any threat to Nazra a direct threat to the Egyptian feminist movement ... both its present and past.”