Joint Statement: Renewed Crackdown on Independent Groups, Government Investigating Human Rights Workers

On June 9, government investigators workingat the behest of a judge overseeing a four-year-old case against internationaland Egyptian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) visitedthe main officeof the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in Cairo and asked thestaff to produce documents regarding the institute’s registration,founding contract, and statute, as well as the budgets, financial accounts, andfunding contracts for the past four years.

The investigators had previously visitedthe Egyptian Democratic Academy (EDA) and looked into their activities, fundingsources, and whether they are in compliance with the current law onassociations. Four EDA staff members have been banned from traveling outside Egypt.

“Thereinvigoration of a four-year-old case against independent Egyptian civilsociety groups is an extremely worrisome sign that the government thinks it canget away with silencing one of the last bastions of criticism,” said Joe Stork,Human Rights Watch Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Egypt’sallies such as the United States and European Union should make it clear thatthis is unacceptable.”

The investigating judge hasdesignated a group of Social Solidarity Ministry employees to a “committee ofexperts” to investigate whether Egyptian organizations are in compliance withthe current repressive Law on Associations (Number 84 of 2002). During the June9 visit, they refused requests from CIHRS employees to provide an official copyof their warrant, instead showing them an informal warrant without any governmentstamps. A CIHRS lawyer told the investigators that they could not search the officeor access the files without providing an official warrant, and theinvestigators left.

The investigation into the foreignfunding case has been split into two prosecutions, one involving foreign NGOsand one involving Egyptian NGOs. In the first case, a Cairo criminal court sentenced 43 foreign and Egyptianemployees of foreign NGOs to between one and five years in prison in June 2013.

Though none of the defendants were madeto serve their sentences, the verdict resulted in the closure of the InternationalRepublican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, theInternational Center for Journalists, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Thegovernment has now reinvigorated the investigation into the Egyptian NGOs,which could lead to criminal prosecution under provisions of the penal code.

Under amendments to the penal codedecreed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in September 2014, prosecutors canseek a sentence of life in prison (effectively 25 years) under broad terms thatinclude receiving money from abroad “with the aim of pursuing acts harmful tonational interests or destabilizing the general peace or the country’sindependence and its unity.”

Staff at the Cairo Institute who read theinvestigators’ warrants said that the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and theEgyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights were also listed as targets.Both groups have provided essential work on human rights violations in Egypt.

Authorities raided the Hisham Mubarak LawCenter in February 2011 and arrested staff members and staff of otherinternational organizations who were in the office, including Human RightsWatch and Amnesty International. Theauthorities raided the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights in 2013and again in 2014, seizing files and computers and detaining staff members for afew hours.

Since then, the authorities have alsotargeted local Egyptian NGO workers by arresting, threatening, and banning themfrom travel.

Mohamed Lotfy, the executive director ofthe Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, was banned from travel toGermany on June 2, 2015, to attend a roundtable organized by the Green Party atthe German Parliament. An Egyptian security agency officer in plain clothesconfiscated his passport at the airport before releasing him back into Egypt.

On June 21, 2014, police arrested YaraSallam, a researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, amid ademonstration held to protest a restrictive 2013 law that effectively bans suchdemonstrations. According to Sallam’s organization, she was arrested alongsideher cousin while buying a bottle of water. The authorities released her cousina few hours later but held Sallam and referred her to the prosecutor after thepolice discovered that she worked with a human rights organization. A judgeeventually gave Sallam and others two-year prison sentences.

Otherhigh-profile human rights workers have received indirect threats of prosecutionor violence. Bahey Hassan, the CIHRS director, and another board member, have received deaththreats.

In August 2014, the Egyptian governmentgave NGOs a November 10, 2014, deadline to register under the Law onAssociations, which empowers the government to reject registration applicationswithout reasoning, shut down any group virtually at will, freeze its assets,confiscate its property, reject nominees to its governing board, block itsfunding, or deny requests to affiliate with international organizations. The2002 law has never been replaced, despite government pledges to draft a newassociations law abiding by international standards, but the government has notenforced it consistently.

The law provides for criminal penaltiesup to one year in prison for unauthorized activities by independent groups butit states that harsher penalties in other laws, including the penal code, willalso apply to such activities. Under the governments of Hosni Mubarak, the SupremeCouncil of Armed Forces (SCAF), ousted president Mohamed Morsy and formerpresident Adly Mansour, the authorities routinely harassed activists and insome cases arbitrarily shut down nongovernmental groups.

The government did not act upon theNovember 2014 deadline, but the current reinvigoration of the foreign fundingcase, first brought under the SCAF in 2011, suggests that the authorities areattempting to prevent organizations from working. If successful, independentcivil society in Egypt risks being wiped out.

Few independent NGOs – most of which areregistered as law firms or civil companies – complied with the November 2014ultimatum. Others who chose not to comply shut down certain divisions, reduced theiractivities or relocated staff and activities abroad. The EDA, unlike mostindependent NGOs, successfully registered under the 2002 Law on Associations inSeptember 2014. Nevertheless, it was the first to be investigated.

“Today, Egypt’shuman rights organizations are making a desperate last stand for theirindependence. The international community must not let the authorities silencepeaceful dissent,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui,Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It’s time formembers of the UN Human Rights Council to break their shameful silence on Egyptand stand up for independent civil society, including the human rightsdefenders whose work they so lauded after the 2011 uprising.”

The actions of the al-Sisi administration are at odds withEgypt’s pledges at its March 2015 Universal Periodic Review at the UnitedNations Human Rights Council. There, Egypt’s delegation acceptedrecommendations to issue a new NGO law to “fully guaranteeto the civil society a set of rights in conformity with internationalstandards” and to “fully implement its international obligations to ensure theprotection of human rights defenders and other civil society actors.”

The Egyptian authorities should haltenforcement of the 2002 Law on Associations immediately, including bywithdrawing any prosecutions or travel bans leveled against any NGO workersimply for their work or membership in such an organization. The Egyptianauthorities should adopt a new law on associations, ideally after a new parliament is elected, thatcomplies with international human rights standards and ensure that independentcivil society organizations are meaningfully consulted in the drafting process.

Statement by

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN),

Human Rights First,

Front Line Defenders (FLD),

IFEX,

FIDH under the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders,

World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) under the Observatory for theProtection of Human Rights Defenders,

Clovek v tisni, o.p.s./People in Need,

CarnegieEndowment for International Peace (CEIP),

Human Rights Watch (HRW),

Amnesty International.