Human Rights Groups Feel Noose Tightening in Egypt

First it was the political parties. Next, the unions. Then the media. And now, say critics of Egypt’s new law on associations, the government is muzzling nongovernmental organizations.

The law quietly signed by President Hosni Mubarak this month bars NGOs, as they are known--such as groups involved in human rights, housing or women’s issues--from engaging in activities deemed to be political. It also forbids the groups to receive funds from foreign sources without government permission.

The new law lets the Social Affairs Ministry disband the boards of directors of private groups and nullify their decisions. Human rights organizations fear that their boards will be fired or that they can be labeled illegal organizations and denied registration if they engage in criticism that is too harsh for the authorities.

Cabinet ministers and parliament members loyal to Mubarak have hailed the law as a reform that will revitalize civil society. But human rights advocates dismiss this as a cynical untruth, saying the new regulations leave them more vulnerable than before to government interference.

And even more pessimistically, they are warning that freedoms in Egypt, the most populous Arab country and one usually counted among the United States’ closest friends in the region, are being quietly eroded as Mubarak prepares to begin his fourth six-year term of office.

The State Department has publicly criticized the new law. Spokesman James P. Rubin called it “the wrong direction to go if Egypt wants to energize civil society and promote development.”

During a recent visit, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson chided the government, saying it should treat pro-democracy and human rights groups as “full partners, not opponents.”

But Mubarak loyalists have brushed aside both internal and external critics, saying everyone should wait to see how the law is implemented.

Social Affairs Minister Mervat Tilawi promised that “any human rights organizations that want to register are most welcome” and said the law will prove to be Egypt’s “most democratic piece of legislation.”

What are the human rights community’s objections?

“We see it violating the right of peaceful assembly in Egypt,” said Yousry Mustafa, spokesman for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the country’s oldest human rights organization, whose director was briefly jailed last year after calling attention to alleged massive abuse of citizens by police in the southern village of El Kosheh.

“The situation is becoming worse as time goes by,” Mustafa said. Although there may be other Arab countries with worse human rights records, he said, by European standards the human rights situation in Egypt is grave.

Most forms of public protest in Egypt are banned under an emergency law renewed regularly since Mubarak came to power in 1981 after the assassination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. There are laws on the books that restrict the activities of professional syndicates, political parties and the press. The new law on nongovernmental organizations is the last straw, Mustafa said.

“After this, all the civil society organizations will be very, very restricted,” he said.

Before the law was signed by Mubarak, a coalition of civic organizations and leading intellectuals drafted a petition opposing it. Some members even engaged in a brief hunger strike. Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch weighed in from abroad with strong condemnations.

But the law sailed through parliament with unusual speed and had been signed by Mubarak several days before anyone realized it.

“There is no balance of power at the moment that will force the government to introduce democratic legislation,” said Gasser Abdel Razek, executive director of the Center for Human Rights Legal Aid.

On the surface at least, none of this seems to arouse outrage beyond the leftist and intellectual elite or Islamist circles. Most of the upper class is busily increasing its wealth, taking advantage of the economic liberalization that Mubarak has introduced in the 1990s.

For the majority of Egypt’s poor, on the other hand, life is simply a struggle to earn enough to survive.

That does not discourage Abdel Razek, who insists that resistance to the new law will eventually prevail.

“When you are in a country where there is no real democracy and the country is accountable to nobody,” he said, “struggles take a long time.”