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NGOs Allowed to Receive Foreign Funding, Rules Egyptian Court

April 20, 2016
From February 2012, Egyptian policemen sit in front of Egyptian employees of several pro-democracy groups charged with using foreign funds to foment unrest during their trial in Cairo. (photo credit: AP/Khalil Hamra)

Following a long drawn-out legal process surrounding the issue of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt receiving foreign funding, an Egyptian administrative court on Tuesday issued a ruling saying that the NGOs in fact are legally permitted to receive funding from abroad. Foreign funding is to be allowed, the verdict read, provided that the Ministry of Social Solidarity does not consider the NGOs in question harm “general peace and security” or “negatively affected public morality,” according to state-owned Ahram Online. Several Egyptian NGOs have recently been under investigation by authorities for allegedly receiving “unauthorized” foreign funding. One of the prominent cases involve the women’s rights group Nazra For Feminist Studies, whose founder and director Mozn Hassan was officially summoned for questioning in March. The prominent human rights activists Hossam Bahgat and Gamal Eid have also been under scrutiny by Egyptian authorities, which have frozen their assets and even barred them from travel. The investigation of what has been called the “NGO foreign funding case” was first launched in 2011 over the alleged illegal foreign funding received by civil society groups, which prompted Egyptian authorities to raid several of their offices. A…


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