Egypt’s general prosecutor has ordered a freeze on the assets of prominent lawyer and the director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA) Azza Soliman. According to a statement from CEWLA, Soliman was informed by bank employees that her assets and those of her law firm were frozen in connection with what is known as the “NGO foreign funding case.” Two days earlier, upon trying to catch a flight to Jordan, Soliman discovered that she had also been banned from traveling. “We reiterate on the fact that neither Azza nor any of her firm’s employees were summoned for any investigations for this case or any other case,” the statement reads. “Such a decision is a severe violation to the constitution and law as it should have been issued after the investigations not before it according to the general principle of the Criminal Procedures law.” According to the statement, Soliman’s lawyers have submitted an appeal against the asset freeze. 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,…
