Saturday, December 31, 2011
Egyptian forces raid an NGO (photo: AP)
Security forces in Egypt this week raided the offices of at least six non-governmental organizations and confined their staffs at gunpoint while police searched through files and computers.
Three of the NGOs were American-based: Freedom House; the National Democratic Institute (NDI); and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The NDI and the IRI were created in 1983 and receive funding from the U.S. government through the National Endowment for Democracy.
The other three raided were The Arab Center for the Independence of Judiciary and Legal Profession and The Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory (both Egyptian NGOs), and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a German NGO.
The NDI, IRI and Freedom House were previously investigated by the ministry of justice on charges of receiving foreign funding,
The Egyptian military, criticized by pro-democracy forces for its unwillingness to cede authority to civilians, has accused NGOs with foreign connections of being behind the country’s civil unrest.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Egypt Security Raids US, German and Egyptian NGOs (by William Fisher, The Public Record)
Stomping on Human Rights in Egypt (by David J. Kramer, Freedom House/Washington Post)
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