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Activists
Move To Block Egyptian Bill To Curb NGOs
CAIRO,
June 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian human rights
activists, backed by several liberal and leftist deputies, urged
parliament Sunday to stop moves toward adopting a bill they fear would
threaten their work.
The
plea came after the parliament, which is dominated by President Hosni
Mubarak's National Democratic Party, gave its preliminary approval
Saturday to a bill regulating non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The
lower house's preliminary approval opens the road for the bill to be
discussed section by section by the 454 MPs. Parliamentary sources
said a final vote on the bill could be held Monday, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
human rights groups, as well as the main opposition Parties (Wafd,
Tagamu and Nasserite), appealed for the debate on the bill to be
suspended, in a memorandum submitted to Parliament Speaker Fathi
Srur's office.
The
memorandum, presented during a press conference held by the groups,
says the bill contains several unconstitutional articles.
"This
law seeks to impose the hegemony of executive power on civil
society," said Hafez Abu Saada, Secretary General of the Egyptian
Organization of Human Rights.
A
draft of the law, cleared the parliament's upper house last month, the
Shura (consultative) Council, seeks to regulate the activities,
financing, and status of NGOs, which include human rights groups.
The
government is pushing the bill to fill a void left by the High
Constitutional Court's decision to throw out a similar law in 2000
because it was not sent through the Shura Council.
That
law, equally unpopular with human rights groups, was adopted by the
parliament's lower house on May 27 1999 and then was ratified by
President Mubarak.
Activists
are particularly bothered by the new legislation's provision for
"the Minister of Social Affairs to dissolve an NGO" if its
article 17 is not respected, according to a copy of the draft obtained
by AFP.
Article
17 forbids "earmarking NGO funds to activities other than those
for which the organization was founded," and forbids
"obtaining funds from or sending funds to a foreign party,"
without government approval.
Saada
said earlier "the draft is worse than the previous law, because
it allows the Minister to dissolve an NGO by a simple administrative
decision, without resorting to the courts."
Members
of the liberal and leftist parties, who hold only a fraction of the
parliament's seats, as well as the members of the NGOs, also announced
the "creation of a permanent committee to defend democracy."
The
committee's goal is "to counter setbacks in the democratic
process that Egypt suffered recently, such as the falsification of
municipal election results," in April, said Hussein Abdel Razeq,
deputy head of the Tagamu party.
The
Egyptian government is endlessly criticized over its human rights
record by local and international NGOs, and was again scolded in the
annual Amnesty International report published this week.
The
new draft law would further entrench state domination of NGOs while
threatening activists with serious criminal penalties if passed,
according to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR).
In
a statement released May 31, the U.S.-based LCHR called upon the
Egyptian parliament to amend the draft law to better reflect
international standards of freedom of association.
Entitled
“Stifling Civil Society in Egypt: Proposed New Law on Associations
is a Step Back for Political Pluralism,” the statement notes the
similarity between the draft law and Law 153 of 1999 that governed
NGOs.
While
Law 153 was struck down on procedural grounds, the High Constitutional
Court also pointed out that several provisions were unconstitutional.
The
proposed law will make it almost impossible for an NGO to be “both
legally registered and independent,” a substantial threat to
advocacy groups in particular, according to the statement.
“The
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights calls on the Egyptian parliament to
amend the draft law to strike a better balance between the
government's legitimate interest in ensuring that NGOs operate
transparently and the need for NGOs to be free from state control,”
said the statement.
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