[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9956]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 EGYPT

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last week Egyptian government investigators 
working on behalf of a judge who is overseeing a 4-year-old case 
against international and Egyptian nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, 
visited the main office of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights 
Studies, or CIHRS, and asked for registration and financial documents. 
The investigators reportedly tried to pass off an informal search 
warrant as legal cover, but CIHRS staff made clear they couldn't search 
the office without an official one. The investigators left, but their 
message was clear: a new crackdown is on the way.
  According to information I have received, CIHRS is the second 
organization to receive such a visit this year. The same investigators 
previously visited another organization, the Egyptian Democratic 
Academy, and looked into their activities and funding sources. Four 
members of the academy have since been banned from leaving Egypt.
  Some Senators may remember this case: it is the same one that led to 
the conviction of 43 foreign and Egyptian NGO workers, including 16 
Americans, in 2013. The fact that the Egyptian authorities have decided 
to resuscitate this old case against these NGOs shows that President 
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's administration is confident that it can silence 
critical voices with little international objection.
  Since the 2011 revolution, the government has made several efforts to 
replace a harsh 2002 law on associations--unevenly implemented under 
former President Hosni Mubarak--with even more draconian regulations, 
including a draft law that would have given the government and security 
agencies effective veto power over NGO boards of directors, foreign 
funding, and very existence. Although a new law has yet to be passed, 
the authorities have previously raided or detained staff from respected 
organizations such as the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Human Rights 
Watch, Amnesty International, and the Egyptian Center for Economic and 
Social Rights.
  I am deeply concerned with the reinvigoration of this 4-year-old case 
and the message it sends about Cairo's intent to restrict independent 
NGOs. I am similarly concerned with recent press reports alleging that 
the authorities have disappeared a significant number of young people, 
some of whom later died, in a coordinated campaign, activists say, to 
silence dissent. Such actions, if true, are deplorable and are no way 
to effectively combat terrorism and related insecurity.
  Support for a strong and flourishing independent civil society is a 
critical part of any pluralistic society, but we are seeing the reverse 
in Egypt. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on 
the Department of State and Foreign Operations which provides 
assistance for Egypt, I am dismayed by the al-Sisi government's 
rejection of basic freedoms, whether it is the right to express oneself 
or the right to assemble. Such repressive tactics are not likely to 
contribute to greater security or stability in Egypt--instead they are 
likely to do just the opposite.

                          ____________________