Cairo - An Egyptian court has handed down a crackdown on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with foreign funding. Also affected is the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS). All 43 indicted NGO employees, including ex-KAS office manager Andreas Jacobs, were sentenced to between one and five years' imprisonment. The court also ordered seizure of assets from several NGOs, including three US organizations.
However, most foreign convicts, including the two Germans, are no longer in Egypt. They will probably not take their prison sentences unlike the Egyptian NGO staff who are still in the country. Appeal may be appealed against the verdict. Hans Pöttering, chairman of the KAS, already announced that the German organization would use "all possibilities" to proceed against the judgment.
The process had dragged on for more than a year, straining the relationship between Cairo and the US and Germany. In March 2012, the exit ban against two accused German employees of KAS was repealed, after Berlin paid a deposit of 250,000 euros per person. Washington, too, had deducted most of its accused citizens on bail.
Allegations "completely outlandish"
"The absurd condemnation of our employees makes me deeply affected," said the KAS chairman Pöttering. "It was not a rule of law process over the entire course of the process has become clear, how unfounded and unfounded the allegations."
In December 2011, Egyptian security forces raided a total of 17 Egyptian and foreign organizations, including the KAS. The searches were, according to the authorities, investigations into suspected illegal "financing from abroad". In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the now convicted Andreas Jacobs, at that time office manager of the KAS in Cairo, had called the accusations "completely absurd".
The process dragged on for over a year. During his visit to Berlin in January, Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi signed a cultural agreement with Germany, which among other things should put the work of the KAS in Egypt on a legal footing. Whether the Konrad Adenauer Foundation can continue to maintain an office in Egypt is unclear for the time being. She has been working in Egypt for 30 years.
"We are outraged by the tough court decisions"
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle rebuked the guilty verdicts: "We are outraged and deeply disturbed by the tough court decisions against staff members of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Cairo and the ordered closure of the office." The government will support the KAS to overturn the sentences. "The Egyptian judiciary's approach is worrying, weakening civil society as an important pillar of democracy in a new democratic Egypt," said the minister.
In response to the verdict, the Foreign Ministry called the Chargé d'Affaires of the Egyptian Embassy, Hisham Seif-Eldin. According to Secretary of State Emily Haber "the serious concern" of the Federal Government on the verdict against the Konrad Adenauer Foundation expressed. It is incomprehensible that employees of German political foundations would be prosecuted.
For the future work of non-governmental organizations in Egypt, the verdict is a heavy blow. Since the overthrow of Husni Mubarak, a large number of new Egyptian organizations have sprung up to campaign for democratization, advocating for example women's rights or protection against attacks by the security apparatus. But these NGOs often depend on international financial support. The verdict is now a clear warning to all organizations not to accept foreign aid.
The law on which the verdict was based dates back to the Mubarak era. Before the overthrow of Mubarak in February 2011, the work of NGOs in Egypt was massively restricted and closely monitored. A reform of the previous NGO legislation in Egypt has already failed twice. Egypt's parliament had agreed in May 2012 with civil society on a new NGO law. However, shortly before the passing of the law, the lower house of Parliament was dissolved by the Supreme Court because of a procedural error in the electoral law.
Now, in May 2013, the House of Lords wanted to launch a new, restrictive NGO law. But then the upper house was dissolved before it came to a passing of the law.