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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Interview Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters NGO bill enacted into law
By Gamal Essam El-DinIn the early hours of last Thursday, following a day-long debate, the People's Assembly approved, by a hefty majority, a new bill designed to regulate the activities of some 15,000 registered non-governmental organisations (NGOs). However, the bill did not go down well with 11 opposition deputies and one independent.
In the often stormy debate, the government side, led by Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri, maintained that the bill was not targeted at human rights groups. "The bill only aims at serving the public interest," El-Ganzouri said. "The state is keen to support NGOs, about 15,000 of which are registered, and to boost their contribution to development efforts. Let me, however, emphasise that the law bans NGOs from exercising political and syndicate activities. Those who want to exercise these activities can join political parties and professional syndicates. Let me also tell those who want to cause harm to Egypt that they have no place under this law."
Articles 11 and 17 caused great controversy, coming under sharp criticism from the opposition while hotly defended by government officials and members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), led by Zakaria Azmi, chief of the presidential staff.
Article 11 bans NGOs from exercising political party activity. Ahmed Nasser, speaking for the liberal Wafd Party, argued that this poses a serious threat to civil society organisations "because it draws an unjustifiable distinction between civil society activities and political action."
"This article opens the door for the government to close down certain NGOs on the grounds that they exercise political activity. This article is like a capital punishment against all civil society activities. This regrettably comes at a time when most countries are taking faster steps towards democratisation and giving greater freedoms to civil society activities," said Nasser.
Minister of Social Affairs Mervat Tellawi, responding to Nasser, said "The law deliberately aims at preventing NGOs from exercising political action. Political action must be confined to political parties because these are governed by the law on the exercise of political rights. The latter allows parties to nominate candidates in parliamentary elections and rise to power. NGOs, by contrast, must not be involved in these activities."
However, for Sameh Ashour, the sole representative of the Nasserist Party, Tellawi's argument is "meaningless because it is impossible for opposition parties to ever rise to power or even gain a considerable number of parliamentary seats in general elections." The involvement of NGOs in political action, he argued, reinforces "the sense of belonging" among ordinary citizens and encourages them to contribute to public action.
Two leftist MPs, Mohamed Shaaban and El-Badri Farghali, joined forces with Ashour. Farghali said that the term "political action", mentioned in Article 11, has "police, rather than legal", connotations. "Although the law was tailored to give the government the right to disband 10 specific NGOs, Article 11 would empower state security officers to take action against all types of NGOs," said Farghali.
Facing up to these opposition accusations, Ibrahim El-Nimiki, deputy chairman of the assembly's legal committee, argued that freedom given to NGOs should not be absolute. "There should be limits, because some tend to abuse the noble objectives of civil action to exercise partisan activities," he said.
Azmi insisted that Article 11 is in line with the constitution because it codifies the distinction between political and syndicate action on the one hand, and NGO activities on the other. "I don't understand why some people are angry with this important distinction," said Azmi.
Several modifications were proposed by opposition deputies, but all fell short of gaining approval. As a result, the government-proposed text of Article 11 was approved by the assembly.
Equally controversial was Article 17, which stipulates that NGOs must gain the approval of the Ministry of Social Affairs before accepting foreign donations. Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs, stirred up a fever of angry excitement among ruling party deputies when he gave a list of three NGOs which, he said, had received foreign funding worth LE52.4 million, LE13 million and LE20 million respectively. He did not name the offending NGOs.
Objecting, the Wafd's Ayman Nour said that "if El-Shazli's list is true, why doesn't the government divulge the names of these three NGOs?" El-Shazli responded by admitting that the unnamed NGOs were registered with the Social Affairs Ministry, and as such the ministry had known all along about their funding.
Joining forces with El-Shazli, Azmi said that "those who want to establish commercial bodies under the title of human rights organisations have no place under this law, because this is illegal and unconstitutional." Azmi went as far as to propose modifying the article to clearly state that NGOs are not only banned from receiving donations without the approval of the Ministry of Social Affairs, but are also prohibited from transferring money to foreign organisations or persons in settlement of the cost of books, publications or technical and scientific magazines.
"NGOs should not be involved in transferring money abroad. Yes, they have the right to send and receive books and magazines, but even this should be under the supervision of censorship authorities," said Azmi. His proposal gained the assembly's approval.
