Thursday, December 29, 2011

#NGORaid : And The NGOs are being raided

Today 6 human rights organizations and NGOs have been raided by public prosecutors guarded by police and military police in what officially considered another episode of the the NGO’s foreign funding cases.
The 6 human rights organizations are : The Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP) , National Democratic Institute “NDI” , Republican Institute “IRI” , Freedom house and Budgetary and human rights observatory .
The public prosecutor officers took documents and computers from these offices. There is one detained researcher from the Budgetary and human rights observatory in the raid and according to lawyers he may be released tonight insh Allah hopefully.
By Dear Sarah Carr from the NDI

Official MENA reports that 17 headquarters of NGOs were raided today , I believe that they meant offices followings these NGOs and not 17 NGO because so far 6 human rights.
Now for the record for weeks the National Democratic institute “NDI” and Republic Institute have been mentioned in the reports of unofficial foreign funding from the United States , among other NGOs.  “Freedom House” and foreign funded NGOs have got the worst reputation due to the long time accusations of being a front of CIA to the rest of this talk since the days of Mubarak.
Wael Al Abrashi discussed in his popular TV show on Dream TV2 this file tonight and brought an ex-NGO employee who allegedly worked at the IRI accusing the NGO of having some hidden agenda . I have not seen the complete episode for the record. The clip below from some anti-Tahrir group is from the show.
Wael Al Abrashi : IRI got a hidden agenda
Just a quick look in the comments at the news websites you will know how much the human rights organizations are looked to in the country thanks to the media. It is worth to mention that many of the conservative Islamist powers in the country do not like the NGOs and human rights organizations as well because they consider them western funded NGOs working on destroying the society for supporting women’s issues and minorities issues. 
Strangely I know NGOs like Nadeem and Hisham Mubarak center that stood with Islamists like no other in the country.  The NGOs need to have counter campaign.
The 6 human rights organizations were waxed including the ACIJLP.Now the head of the ACIJLP is lawyer Nasser Amin who is a member in the National council of human rights as well a registered lawyer in the ICC. Some activists that his human rights organization was targeted because he had an initiative called “Transitional Justice” which calls for prosecuting SCAF for all the violations and crimes that took place since February 11,2011.
Nasser Amin at his waxed NGO !!
Some activists think there is a connection between Amin as a member to the ICC and that lawsuit some activists like Khaled Abu El Naga and Bothiana Kamel are trying to push against SCAF leaders there.
Of course I must hint any talk about the word “ICC” will provoke the majority of the Egyptian people that refuse any foreign interference especially when it comes to the army , the scenarios of Iraq and Sudan are in their minds and it will prove the claims of the former Mubarak’s regime they hear in the media.I will not deny what I see , I know how Egyptian people do truly think outside the twitter bubble and Tahrir borders.
Some say this crackdown is the ultimate revenge against the NGOs after the victory of Samira Ibrahim and human rights organizations. I think we will know if this is the ultimate revenge or not when the prosecution office and judiciary say its word because up till now we are speaking about investigation and interrogations. 
The national council for human rights has condemned the raid and expressed its concern in the first official reaction.
The United States embassy officially expressed its concern for what it considered a harassment to the NGOs demanding it to be stopped.
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei was the first to comment about the raid in his official twitter account.
7 NGOs and human rights organizations had a press conference tonight at the Egyptian organization for human rights where they issued a statement condemning the attack on the NGOs.
I believe that since day this topic of foreign funding was brought up in the media , all the human rights organizations and NGOs should have published its funding sources and financial reports in order to shut the door forever when it comes to this matter.
The revolution was not and is not made by NGOs or human rights organizations as some may believe thanks to these tales about Freedom house , the revolution is much more complicated.
Also I do not think that these days are worse than Mubarak’s days who did not dare to come close to the NGOs , be fair for God sake !! I know that we tend forget so quickly !!
By the way famous human rights activist lawyer Gamal Eid said today that he found out the communicaiton blockage case was transferred to the military judiciary because some military personnel was involved in it. Of course all people thought of Tantawy despite if you remember SCAF and Tantawy denied to have anything about it when Mubarak’s defense brought up the matter. 
Anyhow this is not the most interesting or shocking thing Eid tweeted today because he revealed out the ANHRI was working on even more dangerous case that he did not reveal more details about it.
Israel took over some Egyptian ship and captured 14 Egyptians on the board of that ship and SCAF is keeping the matter !!
Some of the Tahrir activists believe it is a start of a witch hunt against all activists before next January 25th.
The crack in general is not good because knowing the role of the NGOs and human rights organizations played in the past and the challenge facing us in the future makes me extremely worried to huge extent but I have faith in God.

3 comments:

  1. The Interior Ministry said the raids on nonprofit organizations were part of the investigation into foreign funding of rights groups.
    By far the largest recipient of foreign funding in Egypt is the military itself, which has for more than 30 years received about $1.3 billion in annual U.S. security assistance.
    It's about time the US cuts off the Egyptian military fund.

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  2. Whats curious is the NGO's that weren't raided such as the Saudi ones.This looks like the old squeeze play, religious on one side and militiary/business/right wing on the other. Who gets caught in the middle? You guessed it those enemies of the people - charities & volunteer groups.

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  3. Dear Zeinobia
    1. Know (from a logical analysis about Gaza) that Israel will not stop to play the provocator role:
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/egypts-revolution-and-israel-bad-jews/9231 (Ilan Pappe was visionnary during the last winter).
    2. May be that there is too much xenophobia rampant in Egypt and even among activists that it renders sensitive the movement by exposing at a moment of crossing with the arguments of the extreme right.
    I'm sorry but I think it really, by comparing with my western democracy itself which suffers actually from these sort of damages that in a country which is not yet freed it is a great ideological danger..

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