Ngos Bill Sparks Fears In Egypt Over Freedom Restrictions

A new bill that was recently approved in principle by the Shura Council, Upper House of Egypt’s parliament, has triggered fears of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), which slammed the draft law for possible restrictions on civil society activities.

Several NGOs uncovered intention of administration of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group, which President Mohamed Morsi hails from, to strangle freedoms and activities of the civil organizations.

Shura Council, the country’s temporary legislative power, approved last week in principle the controversial bill that was submitted by the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the MB, regulating the activities of the NGO.

Under the draft law, the registered NGOs are strictly prohibited from obtaining foreign funding, including the funding from foreigners or Egyptians living abroad without permission from the Social Affairs Ministry, and are obliged to obtain official permission before transferring money abroad.

Furthermore, the law prohibits NGO board members from having armed militia or realizing profits from the organization activities, defining the NGOs as groups who aren’t involved in profitable activities, but simply aims at achieving humanitarian, developmental, and economic goals.

The new bill was drawn up due to the NGOs foreign funding case that erupted after the 2011 uprising, said Justice Ministry representative in the Shura Council Omar al-Sherief.

Head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) Bahey al-Deeen Hassan said the draft law is an attempt to ” nationalize” and “control” the civil society organizations.

“The law is an obvious bid to shift the civil working organizations from non-governmental to governmental socities” Hassan told Xinhua, terming the bill as “the worst law” that had been drafted in the history of NGOs in Egypt.

He reiterated that the new law considers the NGOs’s fund as public money, while before it was the citizens’ money, which means according to him shifting the NGOs to a “public sector organizations”

For his part, Hafez Abu Seada, General-Secretary of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, considered the bill an attempt to impose further restrictions on the NGOs.

“The Shura Council ignored all our proposals over the procedures of registering or funding the NGOs,” said Abu Seada.

“We have been urging since long time that any step taken by the NGO should be preceded by a notice not by a license that takes long time and often refused,” he said.

Under the new bill, the NGOs shall obtain a license from the social affairs ministry before taking any step, such as funding, membership in an international organization, and creating a branch for an international organization in Egypt.

The new bill also gives the right of the judiciary seizure to the social affairs ministry when it doubts an organization’s practices or finds a mistake with it, which is described by Abu Seada as a “suppressive article”.

Hassan and Abu Seada saw the law bill was drafted to serve the best interests of MB group that was registered by the social affairs ministry last week as a civil organization.

“The law bill stated that some NGOs can obtain licenses as full- fledged institutions, which means giving the MB the right to participate in all business sectors in Egypt and to even establish branches outside the country,” said Abu Seada.

“The law restricted the work of all NGOs but eased the work of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB),” said Hassan.

“The MB group knows well that this law will benefit the group only because they are now the ruling side and will have the approval and license for everything they want to do as a group, while others who mainly work as a monitor for the regime’s doings will be crippled” added Hassan.

On Friday, a high commission of the United Nations (UN) issued a report, slamming the articles of the bill and urging the Shura Council to enter some amendments on it.

The UN agency said the bill violated the international standards of human rights and restricts the formation of the NGOs.

In response to the UN report, the Shura Council held Sunday a meeting with some experts in the civil society field to discuss the issue.

Head of the Shura Council committee for human resources Abdel- azeem Mahmoud said that the report of the UN was “not objective,” as the report “aims at facilitating the whole working process of the organizations.”

However, the Shura Council member and the head of the social rights committee in the National Council for Human Rights Mona Obeid warned from insisting on such law, saying that “it would lead Egypt to an international isolation and would get it lose the international representation in the human rights international authorities.”

Xinhuanet