Egypt slår til mot NGO’er

Egypts mili­tær­styre har rai­det loka­lene til en rekke NGO’er som arbei­der for men­neske­ret­tig­he­ter og demo­krati, fordi de er støt­tet fra utlan­det. USA uttry­ker dyp bekymring.

The Uni­ted Sta­tes has expressed deep con­cern after Egyp­tian police rai­ded offices of nongovern­men­tal orga­niza­tions (NGOs) rece­i­ving for­eign funding.

State Depart­ment spo­keswo­man Vic­to­ria Nuland urged Egyp­tian aut­hori­ties to imme­dia­tely halt “har­ass­ment” of NGO staff.

“We believe that these NGOs are there to sup­port the democra­tic process. Some of these are insti­tu­tions that are sup­ported by the Uni­ted Sta­tes govern­ment [and] that work around the world in the inte­rests of hel­ping citizens rea­lize their goals of democra­tic proces­ses taking root in their coun­try,” Nuland said.

Offi­cial media reported that 17 pro-democracy and human rights groups had been targeted.

They inclu­ded the U.S.-based Inter­na­tio­nal Repub­li­can Insti­tute (IRI), the Natio­nal Democra­tic Insti­tute (NDI), and Free­dom House, a democra­tic watch­dog group.

NDI, IRI, and Free­dom House, condemned the raids, with some say­ing it mar­ked an escala­tion of repres­sion seen under for­mer Pre­si­dent Hosni Muba­rak before he was topp­led by popu­lar pro­tests in February.

Egypt’s ruling mili­tary has vowed to investi­gate how NGOs are fun­ded and warned that it would not tole­rate for­eign inter­fe­rence in the country’s affairs.

Reu­ters