After a speech delivered by the Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) on 28 May 2015 before the Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament, CIHRS is facing repercussions under the NGO law. The investigating judge in charge of the “NGO foreign funding case” sent, on 9 June, a committee from the Ministry of Social Solidarity to examine whether CIHRS is involved in activities of civic associations in accordance with the provisions of law No. 84 of 2002.

In a recent statement, 22 Egyptians NGOs including CIHRS denounced this search as a “practical application of the government warning issued to non-governmental organizations prior to 10 November 2014, although the government claimed it would not follow up on that warning.”

The Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), in declaring its full solidarity with the CIHRS, calls on the Egyptian government to stop targeting Egyptian human rights organizations, including CIHRS, which has a long history of achievements in defense of human rights in Egypt and the rest of the countries in the region.

The Egyptian government should work hard to address the imbalance in civil society which targets human rights organisations, which was referred to by the Director of CIHRS in his speech to the Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament. Rather than targeting NGOs and those who are working in the field of human rights, the government should provide them with support.

The GCHR also urges the Egyptian government to immediately and unconditionally release all unjustly detained human rights defenders and activists in Egypt.

The government of Egypt must guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in the country are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.