Seventeen Egyptian rights organizations have released a joint statement condemning what they described as “an orchestrated, escalating assault on Egyptian civil society” organizations in recent weeks.
The statement, published on the official website of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies on March 21, added that recent measures adopted by the authorities against a number of rights organizations — including travel bans, summons for questioning and the freezing of assets of two prominent rights defenders — were an attempt “to entirely eliminate rights organizations” and use the judiciary as a political tool to silence dissidents.
