RIGHTS-EGYPT: New law Could silence NGOs

By Cam McGrath Reprint | | Print |

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Jun 5 2002 (IPS) - Human rights groups fear a new law regulating the activities of non-governmental organisations could be used to silence them.

The People’s Assembly, the lower house of Egypt’s parliament, voted unanimously Monday to pass the law. The law is an amended version of controversial legislation introduced in 1999 but later tossed out on procedural grounds.

The new law incorporates most of the provisions of the earlier law but gives greater power to the government. The Ministry of Social Affairs will have power to approve or dismantle non-governmental organisations (NGOs) NGOs without going through the courts.

The law prohibits NGOs from engaging in what it calls political activities. Human rights and pro-democracy groups say this can be a blanket cover for all their work.

“We consider this law an infringement on democracy,” says Samir Bahgouri, a lawyer with the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA), a civil or ganisation that works to protect child delinquents and expose police brutality. “It affects NGOs by putting more constraints on their work and by giving the Ministry of Social Affairs more possibilities to intervene.”

The state Arabic press praised the law, claiming it demonstrates the government’s support to NGOs. “The new law asserts the responsible freedom of civil associations,” state-run El-Gomhuriya newspaper quoted Minister of Social Affairs Amina el-Guindi as saying.

The speed with which the law was passed shocked many observers. The People’s Assembly, dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party, gave the bill a preliminary nod within just a few hours, and ratified it two days later. The Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, reviewed and approved the 75 articles of the law in just two days. President Hosni Mubarak is expected to give it final endorsement this week.

Patrick Crump from Service Centre, a U.S.-AID sponsored organisation that seeks to increase NGO activities says the law was passed quickly so it could be presented at the annual conference of the NGO Federation. First lady Suzanne Mubarak is expected to outline its executive procedures at the conference.

“The conference was due in late May but was postponed in order to allow the law to be passed,” Crump told IPS. He said the full spectrum of NGOs were given an opportunity to participate in the drafting of the law.

“This is not true,” says Hafez Abu Saada, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). “Only a limited number of government-approved organisations were consulted during the meeting,” he says. “Human rights and pro-democracy groups were not invited.”

Abu Saada is particularly troubled by Article 42. “Under Article 42 of the new law, the Ministry of Social Affairs can close down any organisation without having to go through the law courts,” Saada says. If the government seizes all the organisation’s documents and money, it will be impossible for the NGO to defend itself in court, he says.

Another article forbids “obtaining funds from or sending funds to a foreign party” without government approval. Rights groups claim this article aims to legitimise Military Decree No. 4 of 1992, which is frequently used to silence criticism of the government.

It was used against Abu Saada following the publication of an EOHR report in 1998 on sectarian violence between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt. The decree was also used against Dr Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a sociology professor who ran the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies (IKCDS) until it was shut down by police in June 2000.

Ibrahim, who is accused of receiving foreign grants without permission, claims the government is trying to silence his pro-democracy work and his reports on human rights abuses.

“This law specifically targets human rights groups,” says Abu Saada. “It will give the government wider powers to control our work. It will kill Egypt’s civil society.”