Source: Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies
Author(s): Unknown
Original Link: http://www.cihrs.org/?p=14940&lang=en
The undersigned organizations utterly reject and condemn the increasingly aggressive actions taken by the Egyptian government and the investigating bodies against civil society, especially rights groups. We believe the goal of these measures is to slowly strangle the work of rights groups in part by pursuing legal actions based on repressive laws. The ongoing harassment of civil society in Egypt contradicts all claims that the country is democratizing, a process in which these organizations are a basic building block.
Legal and judicial tools based on the repressive Associations Law (Law 84/2002) are being deployed to suppress civil society. As a case in point, the intimidation of rights groups began when on July 18, 2014, the Ministry of Social Solidarity informed civic associations that they must register under the Associations Law by November 10 or face legal consequences. Further intimidation came as human rights defenders were threatened with prison sentences and at times death, leading several of the most prominent defenders to leave the country and prompting other groups to downsize their operations. The government then employed new tactics against rights groups, devoting its efforts to eliminating all critical voices or those that offered an alternate vision of governance…
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