Washington — The Obama administration called on Egypt’s ruling military council to immediately halt its harassment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their staffs, and to return property it confiscated during raids on at least 17 groups on December 29.
The raids have occurred between the rounds of Egypt’s first parliamentary election since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year regime, and State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said they are “not appropriate in the current environment.” The NGOs, including the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), are operating in Egypt to support the country’s democratic process, she said.
“Their primary purpose around the world is to support the development of democratic institutions. They work most actively, both NDI and IRI, in countries that are in democratic transition. They do things like train poll monitors, train poll workers, train political parties in how to mount their campaigns. But they don’t support any individual candidate, any individual party,” Nuland told reporters in Washington December 29.
Nuland acknowledged that both NDI and IRI receive U.S. government support, but said, “All of their work is open to public scrutiny and to government scrutiny,” and they have been “extremely transparent about the programs that they have in Egypt.”
According to press reports, Egyptian soldiers and police seized documents and computers and prevented staffs from leaving in what Egyptian authorities have said is an investigation into the role of foreign governments in recent protests.
Nuland said U.S. officials have “made strong representations and asked for immediate action” in their discussions with the military government. The action against the NGOs “is inconsistent with the bilateral cooperation we have had over many years.”
“We don’t think that this action is justified, and we want to see the harassment end, and we want to see the property returned and the staff allowed to proceed as normal,” she said.
Egypt has held several rounds of its parliamentary vote, and Nuland said they were “generally judged to be free, fair, with open, broad participation,” but the country is still in the middle of an “intense electoral season,” and the NGOs want to resume their normal activities in support of the democratic process in Egypt.