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Human Rights Groups Lambast Egypt Over Civil Society Crackdown

March 24, 2016
A protester at the Press Syndicate in Cairo in 2016 (Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)

A number of international human rights organizations issued statements on Wednesday harshly criticizing the renewed uptick in repression by Egyptian authorities against pro-democracy activists in Egypt. In recent weeks, authorities have banned human rights workers from travel, interrogated them and frozen their assets, in addition to ordering several organizations to be dissolved. Egypt has recently decided to reopen a legal case dating back to 2011 against a number of NGOs over allegations that they receive unlicensed funding from foreign countries. The original case from 2011 – which was opened five months after the ouster of then-president Hosni Mubarak – included the raiding of 16 NGOs in Cairo in December of that year, which led to the prosecution and sentencing to prison of 43 employees of Egyptian and foreign NGOs. The defendants of the reopened case include the founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Hossam Bahgat and the CEO of the Egyptian Democratic Academy Gamal Eid, whose assets have been frozen. Last month, Bahgat and Eid were both barred in separate instances by Egyptian authorities from traveling abroad from Cairo International Airport. Negad El-Borai, director of the leading civil…


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