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CAIRO, April 23, 2012 (AFP)
Egypt has refused to license eight US civil groups, including the election-monitoring Carter Centre, amid a crackdown on foreign NGOs and a month before presidential polls, state media reported Monday.
Should they continue operating, the groups would be “subject to Egyptian law” which bans non-govermental organisations from operating without licences or from receiving foreign funds, the official MENA news agency reported.
The news agency quoted a government source as saying it refused to license the groups because their activities were “inconsistent with the state’s sovereignty on its lands.”
An official with the Carter Centre, which observed Egypt’s parliamentary elections, held in stages between November and January, said the government had not yet contacted the group.
The NGO, founded by former US president Jimmy Carter, had no permanent presence in Egypt, she added, on condition of anonymity.
Egypt placed workers with five foreign NGOs, including Americans, on trial for operating without licences and receiving foreign funding, sparking a crisis in relations with the United States.
The American defendants, and those from other foreign nationalities, were allowed to leave the country in March after posting bail.
The other groups mentioned in the MENA report include Seeds of Peace, which tries to promote dialogue among young people in conflict zones.
Washington had complained of what it called rising “anti-American” statements in Egypt after an uprising ousted its close ally president Hosni Mubarak in February 11 and left the military in power.
The military also enjoys close ties with the United States, but a Mubarak-era minister in the cabinet it appointed who led the NGO crackdown accused Washington of trying to destabilise Egypt through civil society groups.
