Human rights in Egypt have remained under attack after the 2011 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Still, it was a shock when the Cairo Criminal Court convicted 43 employees of foreign nonprofit groups, including 16 Americans, on criminal charges and gave them prison sentences of one to five years.
The politically driven decision sends a chilling message to Egyptians who want to work for democratic change and to countries that have committed to being Egypt’s partners in stabilizing the region, reviving the economy and establishing democratic institutions.
The case began when the military-led government that took control after Mubarak’s fall started a crusade against human rights and civil liberties groups. In December 2011, security forces raided several groups in Cairo, including three U.S.-financed democracy-building organizations and carried off files and computers. Forty-three foreign and local activists were questioned and briefly barred from leaving Egypt.
On June 4, the court convicted them under a Mubarak-era law of receiving illegal funds from abroad and operating unlicensed organizations. The court capitulated to the paranoid argument, by the generals and later by President Mohammed Morsi’s government, that the groups were “foreign hands” out to destroy Egypt. The groups received far less from foreign sources than the $1.3 billion the army receives annually from the U.S. Also, they had been invited by the government to help with the post-Mubarak elections.
It is unlikely any of the defendants will go to prison. Still, the verdict is a travesty, and Morsi should exercise his presidential power to pardon them. He knows the law under which they were convicted is deeply flawed since he has proposed a substitute. But even his proposal falls short of international human rights standards and should be modified.
Egypt’s stability, its ability to build democratic institutions, establish a sound economy, respect the rights and freedoms of its citizens and uphold the peace treaty with Israel are critical. The U.S. needs to find a more effective way of getting that message across.