Egypt’s transition to democracy has gone awry. It has been four years since Egyptians brought an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s oppressive regime, raising an outcry against tyranny that reverberated across the Arab world. At the time, the path to democracy appeared wide open. Egypt’s 2014 presidential elections were supposed to mark a successful conclusion to the Arab Revolution. Instead, the clouds of despotism have returned to darken the political horizon, and the country’s hard-won democratic gains are now in doubt.
Shortly after Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected president last May, his government set about tightening the screws of power by invoking an old authoritarian law that had been allowed to linger—a clear throwback to Mubarak’s rule. Under Law 84, which was passed in 2002 during the former regime, all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have to obtain approval from the Ministry of Social Affairs before accepting funds from foreign sources. Failure to comply allows the government to “freeze their assets, confiscate their property, and block funding.”
This is not the first time NGOs in Egypt have felt the stranglehold of abusive government. Before 2002, NGOs were governed by Law 32 (passed in 1964). That law gave successive governments absolute authority over NGO activities in Egypt, including the authority to ban them outright at any time, for any reason. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Mubarak each exploited this legislation to limit free association, undermining basic civil liberties in the country.
Egyptian and international NGO’s for years tried to persuade one government after another to amend Law 32. Only under mounting political pressure in 1998 was the People’s Assembly tasked with drafting a new law. Egyptian NGOs quickly condemned the resulting amendments as still too restrictive, permitting excessive interference from the government. But theirs was a losing battle, and Law 84 was passed in 2002, retaining many unpopular elements from earlier amendments, including those that gave the government the power to regulate NGO funding.
Today, four years after Mubarak’s fall, Egyptians see regressive policies reasserting themselves to hamper civil liberties. They have come to realize that free elections alone do not bring about a free and functioning civil society, which they have always believed would signal the triumph of democratic rule.
Several months have passed since the government-imposed deadline for complying with Law 84. Only a handful of NGOs registered. Those that refused now wait to be “investigated on a case-by-case basis.”
Protests against Law 84 have had some effect. They have prompted the government to propose new legislation—legislation that simply preserves many of the same elements of the old law, with new clauses tacked on that would further erode civil liberties. Most concerning is the addition of an opaque governmental “coordination committee” to control civil society organizations’ access to funding.
The resurrection of this antiquated NGO law is abhorrent in its own right. But what it represents is even more insidious. It foreshadows an increasingly tight clamp on the freedoms Egyptians only four years ago risked their lives in the hope of attaining.
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Egypt’s Democratic Gains Strangled by NGO Law
February 19, 2015
Egypt’s transition to democracy has gone awry. It has been four years since Egyptians brought an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s oppressive regime, raising an outcry against tyranny that reverberated across the Arab world. At the time, the path to democracy appeared wide open. Egypt’s 2014 presidential elections were supposed to mark a successful conclusion to the Arab Revolution. Instead, the clouds of despotism have returned to darken the political horizon, and the country’s hard-won democratic gains are now in doubt.
Shortly after Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected president last May, his government set about tightening the screws of power by invoking an old authoritarian law that had been allowed to linger—a clear throwback to Mubarak’s rule. Under Law 84, which was passed in 2002 during the former regime, all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have to obtain approval from the Ministry of Social Affairs before accepting funds from foreign sources. Failure to comply allows the government to “freeze their assets, confiscate their property, and block funding.”
This is not the first time NGOs in Egypt have felt the stranglehold of abusive government. Before 2002, NGOs were governed by Law 32 (passed in 1964). That law gave successive governments absolute authority over NGO activities in Egypt, including the authority to ban them outright at any time, for any reason. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Mubarak each exploited this legislation to limit free association, undermining basic civil liberties in the country.
Egyptian and international NGO’s for years tried to persuade one government after another to amend Law 32. Only under mounting political pressure in 1998 was the People’s Assembly tasked with drafting a new law. Egyptian NGOs quickly condemned the resulting amendments as still too restrictive, permitting excessive interference from the government. But theirs was a losing battle, and Law 84 was passed in 2002, retaining many unpopular elements from earlier amendments, including those that gave the government the power to regulate NGO funding.
Today, four years after Mubarak’s fall, Egyptians see regressive policies reasserting themselves to hamper civil liberties. They have come to realize that free elections alone do not bring about a free and functioning civil society, which they have always believed would signal the triumph of democratic rule.
Several months have passed since the government-imposed deadline for complying with Law 84. Only a handful of NGOs registered. Those that refused now wait to be “investigated on a case-by-case basis.”
Protests against Law 84 have had some effect. They have prompted the government to propose new legislation—legislation that simply preserves many of the same elements of the old law, with new clauses tacked on that would further erode civil liberties. Most concerning is the addition of an opaque governmental “coordination committee” to control civil society organizations’ access to funding.
The resurrection of this antiquated NGO law is abhorrent in its own right. But what it represents is even more insidious. It foreshadows an increasingly tight clamp on the freedoms Egyptians only four years ago risked their lives in the hope of attaining.
