Orchestrated assault: Rights NGOs condemn reopening foreign funding case
31.03.16
Seventeen rights organisations issued a joint statement on Monday condemning the reopening the case 173/2011, publicly known as the foreign funding case, referring to it as an “orchestrated, escalating assault” on civil society in Egypt.
The rights organisations include the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), El Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture and Nazra for Feminist Studies.
The groups condemned recent move, targeting advocacy groups in particular, as well as the deployment the judiciary as a political and security weapon to achieve objectives that inflict “grave harm” to justice and human rights in the country.
Nazra is the latest rights organisation to be targeted by the new investigations in the case, as three of its workers received official summons to undergo an interrogation session on 22 March. No reasons were specified in the summons, according to the women’s rights organisation.
