Egypt forces storm offices of pro-democracy groups

The raids on Thursday on 17 offices throughout Egypt are part of the ruling generals’ attempt to blame “foreign hands” for the unrest that continues to roil Egypt since the 18-day revolt that ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February, but that activists say failed to topple his regime.
Among the offices ransacked were the US-headquartered National Democratic Institute, Freedom House and the International Republican Institute, which is observing Egypt’s staggered parliamentary elections.

The Obama administration demanded Egyptian authorities immediately halt the raids on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), saying they are “inconsistent” with long-standing US-Egypt co-operation.
The US State Department called on the Egyptian government “to immediately end the harassment of NGO staff, return all property and resolve this issue.” Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the US ambassador to Egypt and the top US diplomat for the Middle East have spoken to Egyptian officials about the situation and “made very clear that this issue needs immediate attention.”
The raids on the NGOs were the first since Mubarak’s ouster, though Egyptian officials have been levying accusations for months that the civil society groups are serving a foreign agenda. Most recently this month,

Justice Minister Adel Abdel-Hamid accused around 300 nonprofit groups of receiving unauthorised foreign funding and using the money for protests.
The Interior Ministry said the raids on 10 nonprofit organisations 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 $1,3bn in annual US security assistance.

Freedom House said its staff were held incommunicado during the raids and that cell phones, laptops, funds and documents found during the interrogations were confiscated. The group said in a statement the raids came just three days after it formally submitted papers to register its offices in accordance with Egyptian law.
Troops and police sealed the doors of the civil society groups and banned anyone from entering or speaking with employees as they were interrogated.

“In the current fiscal environment, the United States must not subsidise authoritarianism in Egypt while the Egyptian government is preventing NGOs from implementing democracy and human rights projects subsidised by the US taxpayer,” said Freedom House’s Charles Dunne.
The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which is not under investigation, said in a statement that the raids went beyond the type of Mubarak-era tactics that spurred hundreds of thousands of

Egyptians to take to the streets demanding freedom and democracy during this year’s uprising.
“Mubarak’s regime did not dare to undertake such practices prior to the uprising,” ANHRI said, adding that the storming of the civil society organisations’ offices is part of “a systematic campaign against these organisations, which was prepared for in advance.”

The country’s military was cheered by protesters when it took over security from Mubarak’s hated police force in January during the uprising. The military, long the country’s most powerful establishment and one that produced Egypt’s last three presidents, sought to portray itself as a key player in the revolt that toppled Mubarak’s 29-year rule.

However, in the eight months since Mubarak’s ouster, the military, led by a general who served for 20 years as Mubarak’s defence minister, has been methodically seeking to discredit the reformers, accusing them of illegally receiving foreign funds and being part of a plot hatched abroad to destabilise Egypt.
Egypt’s leading pro-democracy advocate, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, denounced the raids.

“Human rights organisations are the guardians of nascent freedom. Efforts to suffocate them will be a major setback and will surely backfire,” ElBaradei wrote on his Twitter account.
An official with the Egyptian Attorney General’s office said at least one of the US-based organisations being searched was operating without proper permits. He did not say which one.
Laws requiring local and foreign civil society groups to register with the government have long been a source of contention, with rights activists accusing the government of using legal provisions to go after groups critical of its policies. Offenders can be sentenced to prison terms. — AP.