National Endowment for Democracy

Is there my hope for Civil Society in Egypt?
Negad al-Borai, Egyptian Organization for Human Rights

The event "Threats to Civil Society in Egypt and the Arab World" was held Wednesday, September 20, 2000 at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS).



Ladies and Gentlemen,

First I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity of participating in this discussion about the challenges that Egypt's civil society facing at present. I also would like to thank my hosts the FPI-NED, Pew Fellowships in international journalism & Middle East studies Department of John Hopkins University, Which have given me this opportunity to address a distinguished number of Middle Eastern scholars.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since I received this invitation I have been thinking about how I can best explain the challenges that face civil society in Egypt.

You no doubt have been following the attempts to paralyze the endeavors of the human rights and democratic forces, their attempts escalated since May 1998, When the Egyptian government drafted a new NGO law, we sensed the early signs.

The arrest of Hafez Abu Saeda the sec. gen. of the EOHR in December 1998 and putting him in jail without a clear charge for one week was another ominous sign. But the peak came in July 2000 with the arrest of Dr Saad Eddin Ibrahim the director of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for developmental studies and a number of his young colleagues. To this day we still do not know the charges made against him or the reason why he spent more than 40 days in prison.

However all this is but like the tip of an iceberg, we feel more grave measures are underway.

The problem Is not that the rights groups be they many or few are facing the threat of eradication on the hands of the consecutive Egyptian governments, nor is it the arrest of civil society activists regardless of their standing or the duration of their arrest.

As we feel it, the real problem in Egypt now is a steady long, and a closing process of political de-liberalization by the last two Egyptian cabinets, control or destroy Egypt's building civil society.

This sinister process that has been obscured by the smoke screen of the battle between the militant fundamentalist groups and the government during the 90's. Civil society stood firmly in support of government against terrorism. But when the government finally emerged victorious from that battle and the smoke subsided, we began to see final stages of this de-liberalization process.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since 1993 the Egyptian government started referring civilians to military trials. In my opinion that step was a serious undermining of the judicial system which had been the mainstay of civil society in Egypt.

The number of civilians referred to military trials slowly began to increase, and the civilians referred were no longer just armed militants but include lawyers, doctors and engineers charged with planning to run in the parliamentary or unionist elections.

The second undemocratic measure was the abolition of elections for village mayors who in the past were elected by their fellow villagers.

Then came the abolition of the election of university deans who were formerly elected by members of the faculty staff.

The pretext for this was once again to prevent the infiltration of terrorists into university staff and village officials.

The third measure was against student unions. The government set a number of internal university regulations by which it reserved the right to strike out candidates for elections which in its opinion are religious fanatics. But later the charge of extremism extended to a wider group of political activists. The government narrowed the scope of activities that could be carried out by the students on campus.

Eventually, the university administration began to appoint on behalf of the students their representatives in the student unions.

The fourth measure was the sequestration of professional unions and associations. You might find it hard to believe that since 1995 no professional union except the actors, musicians, journalists (which is strongly dominated by state editors) and nurses have been able to hold elections.

The bar association and all its chapters are under sequestration. The same applies for the engineers, medical, pharmacist, teachers, scientists, dentists, and commerce unions.

And so professional unions --the backbone of Egypt’s civil society-- have been paralyzed. The excuse as always, is to prevent the Islamists from infiltrating them.

The fifth measure was to cut down political parties to size. Egypt has 14 Parties, non of which according to the emergency law and parts of the penal code may organize a political conference or call upon supporters to rally against government policy, or encourage citizens to change the government, as this is a charge that could lead to jail for a period of up to ten years.

In Egypt you are allowed to demand for a change of the weather or television programs but you cannot demand the change government!

And because the objective of political parties is to attain political power amatter, which is prohibited in Egypt, People have, abandoned them, to the point that one major political party whose membership in 1977 was 150,000 went down to 13,000 members in 1998.

Because political parties in Egypt can only be established after the approval of the governmental Political Parties committee. This committee must be notified of the administrative structure of the parties, which allows it to manipulate and create internal dissention and use them as an excuse to freeze the parties activities by an administrative decree.

In the past five years three small parties have disappeared from the political field, but recently one of the most important parties on the political arena was frozen. Its leaders were referred to the state security prosecutor on charges of receiving foreign funds and creating a coalition with the Moslem brotherhood.

As if all the above are not enough, the state has long maintained total control of the electronic media in Egypt.

Citizens have to watch what the government TV shows and listen to what the government radio wants them to hear.

In rare occasions only does any of the opposition be allowed to appear in government electronic media.

The press is no better. For while licensing laws allow private newspapers, in practice the licenses are only given to the governments cronies, who only publish along the government line in a different typeset to the point were such newspapers have been dubbed as semi-governmental press.

There is a poplar saying now in Egypt that it is easier to enter paradise than to start an independent party or newspaper.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The sixth and final measure has been against the human rights organizations, which had for almost ten years been spared from governmental hostile action, because Egypt's human rights organizations is a part from international movement, the government cannot claim that they are terrorist organizations or aim to overthrow the regime.

The government began to believe that it has a stable society and must not be reminded that all over the world there are increasing democracies and free elections. Nor do our rulers like to be reminded that people like Suharto and General Pinochet could be trialed and imprisoned for corruption and human rights violations despite age and physical condition.

Stability for Egypt's ruling national democratic party "NDP" means stability in the seat of power, regardless of what such an artificial stability could lead to of a negative outcome on the political future of the country.

Until recently there were more than ten human rights groups operating in Egypt but the oppressive practices of the government led to the closure or voluntary dissolving of most of them.

The Group for Democratic Development "GDD" has dissolved itself voluntarily after a number of school teachers who participated in it's democracy awareness program were penalized for their participation in it by deducting as much as one month of their salary. This was not the only harassment of GDD but it was certainly the pettiest of them, more dramatically.

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim and 16 of his colleagues were arrested and the Ibn Khaldoun Center was closed Dr. Ibrahim was released on bail, but he is still banned from travelling outside Egypt. Otherwise he may be with us here today. The EOHR was banned from receiving funds, which in turn led to a total state of paralysis and it is currently almost bankrupt and unable to pay its rent.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

This step by step siege of civil society is being carried out by the use of a number of ploys.

The first is an arsenal of laws and military decrees. The government has not satisfied with the emergency law that has been enforced almost continuously for fifty years. For through other civil code laws such as the law of political parties, press law, NGO'S law, and the professional associations law.

As for political activist's unionists or other civil society leaders, the first and second chapters of the second book of the book penal code can accommodate them. This very act of being with you today or all the statements and newsletters of the EOHR - for example - may lead to imprisonment for a period of six months to five years according to article 80d of the penal code.

Most of these laws are inherited some from the colonial era others from the era of President Nasser and some from President Sadat, The government does not resort to these laws uniformly or consistently, but rather uses them selectively against whom it wishes when it wishes.

This was a first tool. The second tool is the state's huge information machine and its semi-governmental newspapers. This machine is used to attack opposition leaders and rights activists in a cruel and inhuman manner. In the past ten years not one political party or rights organization has been spared a character assassination campaign. The Nasserite and Tagamu party are often dubbed Syrian, Libyan or Iraqi agents. AlArnal party is a Sudanese agent. Rights groups are western specifically American agents.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The presence of civil society institutions is the only channel for citizens to participate in running their own affairs. In the absence of such institutions there can be no political participation nor can citizens be asked to bear the consequences of bad governance and economic hardships. For it is not possible to ask citizens to pay the price for decisions they have not participated in.

The absence of public participation has left Egypt ranking as no. 119 out of 174 in the human development report (H.D.R) of the LJNDP in the year 2000.

It also has ranked Egypt as no 69 out of 99 countries covered by transparency international organization.

Any steps by the government to combat corruption will remain null and void without a full-fledged civil society. Democracy and development go hand in hand. Neither can move forward alone.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

What can be done about such a situation? This is a question we constantly ask ourselves in Egypt.

In my opinion an attempt to revive civil society cannot succeed unless the government recognizes that its oppressive and shortsighted policies have setback the country into the current economic and political crisis. To emerge out of these crises, difficult decisions have to be made, and citizens cannot be made to take the consequences without becoming partners in their homeland. The international community can play a role here by advising the Egyptian government that it has to start reconciliation with it's own civil society, by abolishing the exceptional and oppressive laws, including the continuos enforcement of the martial law.

Government performance and accountability have to be improved, the monitoring role of the civil society has to be activated, and protection has to be guaranteed for its members.

The international community that has evolved the principles of democracy and human rights and articulated them in international covenants must insist on their enforcement in the states that ratified them.

If international community should play a role in monitoring the progress of democracy and growth of civil society in worldwide, including Egypt. This will no doubt improve the political and economic environment for all.

Egypt is the most important country in the Middle East, Africa, and the Arab world. It has a crucial role to play. It will play it well if it is democratic. Egyptians deserve a better government. They want better governance. The civil society movements will bring democracy back to Egypt and we need any possible help in our glorious battle.

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