Joint Press Release: Unprecedented crackdown on NGOs. Human rights activists risk prosecution, asset freezes

“Egypt’s civilsociety is being treated like an enemy of the state, rather than a partner forreform and progress,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of AmnestyInternational’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Theinvestigation into the funding of local and foreign groups began in July 2011, fivemonths after the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak, and has alreadyled to convictions and the closure of the Egypt offices of five internationalnongovernmental organizations. It is currently being conducted by a panel ofthree judges chosen by the Cairo Court of Appeals at the request of the JusticeMinistry.

UnderEgyptian law, prosecutors could charge leading human rights defenders forworking without official registration or accepting foreign funding withoutgovernment authorization. An amendment to the penal code passed in September2014 by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi provides for a sentence of up to lifeimprisonment (which equates to 25 years in prison in Egypt) for the lattercharge.

“The Egyptianauthorities have moved beyond scaremongering and are now rapidly takingconcrete steps to shut down the last critical voices in the country’s humanrights community,” said NadimHoury, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Assetfreezes and travel bans tools to restrict dissent

The crackdown on Egypt’s human rightsdefenders has gathered pace in recent months. On March 22, 2016, Mozn Hassan, founderand director of Nazra for Feminist Studies,was summoned for questioning as a defendant in the foreign funding case. She isdue to appear before the investigating judges on March 29, 2016.

On March 19,a Cairo criminal court heard a request from the investigating judges to freezethe assets of Hossam Bahgat, a journalist and founder of the EgyptianInitiative for Personal Rights who currently writes for the Egyptian newswebsite Mada Masr, and Gamal Eid, a lawyer and the director of the Arab Networkfor Human Rights Information. The judges’ request also extended to the assetsof Eid’s wife and 11-year-old daughter. The court postponed the hearing toMarch 24, and on March 21, the investigating judges also imposed a gag orderpreventing local media from reporting on the case.

A Cairocriminal court had already issued an order in February, at the investigatingjudges’ request, to bar Bahgat and Eid from travelling outside Egypt.

Courts,prosecutors and security agencies have barred at least 10 human rights activists from travel in recent weeks,including Mohamed Lotfy, director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights andFreedoms, and four employees of the Egyptian Democratic Academy.

BetweenMarch 13 and 15, three employees of Nazra for Feminist Studies, two employeesof the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, and one employee of the UnitedGroup, a law firm that has published reports on torture, were asked to appear beforethe investigating judges for questioning. The summoned employees includedfinance officers from each group.

Previously,on March 3, an investigating judge had interrogated the director of the UnitedGroup, the lawyer Negad al-Borei, on the allegation of establishing anunlicensed entity and “pressuring” the president to issue an anti-torture law.

In February,following an investigation, government tax authorities demanded that some ofthe independent groups under investigation pay several million Egyptian poundsin back taxes. On February 17, Health Ministry officials also issued an orderto close the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence andTorture, Egypt’s leading center for such treatment, on the basis that it wasperforming unlicensed work. The Center has been licensed as a medical clinicsince 1993 and has provided hundreds of torture victims with vital services,including counselling and legal assistance.

Foreignfunding investigation

The firstphase of the investigation into independent groups’ funding—known as case 173of 2011—concluded in June 2013 when a Cairo criminal court sentenced 43 foreign and Egyptian employees of five international organizations tobetween one and five years in prison, on charges of operating unlawfully in thecountry and receiving foreign funding without permission.

All of the sentenceswere either suspended or issued in absentia, but the decision forced theclosure in Egypt of the National Democratic Institute, the InternationalRepublican Institute, Freedom House, the International Center for Journalistsand the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Followingthe conclusion of the first investigation into international groups, the authoritiesturned their attention to local organizations.

The threeinvestigating judges resumed their work in 2014, when the Social SolidarityMinistry gave local groups an ultimatum to register under an onerous associationslaw dating to Hosni Mubarak’s presidency. The law empowers the government toshut down any group virtually at will, freeze its assets, confiscate itsproperty and reject nominees to its governing board.

Many of thetargeted groups are licensed in some fashion, including as non-profit groups,law firms or medical clinics. Still, some have relocated their staff outsideEgypt or curtailed their operations rather than register under the Mubarak-eralaw. But even registered groups have not escaped investigation: The EgyptianDemocratic Academy had successfully registered in January 2015, and Nazra forFeminist Studies has been registered since 2007.

Both theNational Security branch of the Interior Ministry and the General IntelligenceService, Egypt’s external spy agency, have been gathering information on local groups’activities for some time. Their findings were contained in a September 2011 fact-findingreport, parts of which were leaked to the media, that named 37 groups underinvestigation, including all of those affected by the recent summonses andtravel bans.

Calls on theEgyptian authorities

The Egyptianauthorities should withdraw the order to close the Nadeem Center and lift alltravel bans and asset freezes against human rights workers, whose activitiesare protected by Egypt’s constitution and international law, the organizationssaid.

Theauthorities should also lift the gag order, which prohibits media outlets frompublishing anything on the case other than statements issued by the presidingjudges until the investigations are complete. This violates the right tofreedom of expression, enshrined in Egypt’s constitution and international law.

Egypt shouldabide by its March 2015 pledge at the conclusion of its Universal Periodic Review before the UnitedNations Human Rights Council to “respect the free exercise of the associationsdefending human rights.” This should include allowing groups to register undera new associations law that parliament should draft following consultation withindependent groups, and which should abide by article 75 of the constitution,which protects groups from interference by the government. The law shouldcomply with international standards on freedom of association.

The HumanRights Council and its member states should condemn the current crackdown anddemand concrete measures to improve respect for fundamental human rights.

“Instead of shuttingdown the last vestiges of civil society, Egypt should welcome scrutiny of itshuman rights record and take on board the constructive criticisms of localNGOs. The authorities should engage in an open and genuine dialogue with itsrights movement,” said Michel Tubiana, President of EuroMed Rights.

Theorganizations expressing concern are:

AmnestyInternational

Article 19

Associationfor Women’s Rights in Development

CIVICUS

Committee toProtect Journalists

EuromedRights

FIDH, withinthe framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Front LineDefenders

Human RightsWatch

IFEX

InternationalService for Human Rights

Project onMiddle East Democracy

WorldOrganisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatoryfor the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

TahrirInstitute for Middle East Policy

For more Amnesty International’s research on Egypt see: https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/egypt/

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Human Rights Watch NadimHoury in Beirut (Arabic, French,English): +961-3-639-244 (mobile); or houryn@hrw.org. Twitter: @nadimhoury

Amnesty International Sara Hashash, MENA Press Officer, AmnestyInternational – International Secretariat in London: + 44 (0) 20 7413 5511 or +44(0) 7831640170 Email: sara.hashash@amnesty.orgTwitter: @sarahashash

FIDH: Arthur Manet/ Audrey Couprie: + 33 1 43 55 25 18

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT): Miguel Martín Zumalacárregui / Chiara Cosentino: +32 2 218 37 19