Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Elder of ZiyonA Cairo criminal court has sentenced 43 people to between one and five years in prison for working for unregistered NGOs in Egypt.These are not fly-by-night NGOs, but some of the most respected human rights organizations around.
Twenty-seven defendants, all of whom were tried in absentia, received five-year jail sentences. Eleven received one-year suspended sentences, and five received two-year sentences.
One of the defendants to receive a two-year sentence was Dar Al-Hilal publishing company CEO Yehia Ghanem, who was a consultant for the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), one of the NGOs involved in the trial. He was also the managing editor of Al-Ahram International.
The court also ordered the closure of five foreign NGOs operating in Egypt and for their funds to be confiscated. These are the US-based Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS).
Forty-three staffers from NGOs, including 19 Americans, were referred to trial in December 2011 on charges of illegally obtaining foreign funds and failing to register their operations with the Egyptian government. The case sparked a crisis in relations between Cairo and Washington and threatened $1.3 billion in annual US military aid.
Remember - the current Egyptian government is moderate compared to the other Islamists in Egypt.
