The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) expresses solidarity with Egyptian human rights defenders and NGOs whose assets have been frozen by the government in a case aimed at silencing civil society.

On 17 September 2016, the Cairo Criminal Court froze the assets of people named in Case no. 173, the so-called “foreign funding” case, which the government revived this year for use against 12 civil society organisations and 17 human rights defenders. They are alleged to have accepted foreign funding without authorization in order to “pursue acts harmful to national interests,” in addition to founding organizations of an international nature without permits. The case originated in 2011. Since an amendment to Egypt’s penal code in 2014, these charges can carry a penalty of life imprisonment.

The people affected include Gamal Eid, founder and executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI); Bahey El-Din Hassan, founder and director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS); Hossam Baghat, investigative journalist and founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR); Mostafa Al-Hassan, director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC); and Abdel Hafez Tayel, director of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Education (ECRE). The court also froze the organizational assets of CIHRS, HLMC and ECRE.

GCHR calls on the Egyptian government to drop the charges against human rights defenders in Case no. 173, overturn the ruling to freeze their assets, and allow them to freely carry out their work