Americans among workers charged in Egypt
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CAIRO -- Egyptian investigators filed criminal charges Sunday against at least 40 international civil society workers, reportedly including the son of a U.S. Cabinet secretary, in a case that could cost the ruling generals more than $1 billion in U.S. aid.
Nineteen Americans are among the employees of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, referred to trial on charges of involvement in banned activities and receiving foreign funds illegally, according to state media. The other defendants are Egyptians, Serbs, Germans and Arabs from other countries, according to news reports. All of them are prohibited from leaving Egypt.
The highly politicized case, which has drawn outrage from Egypt's once-close allies in Washington, shows that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Force is willing to risk Egypt's annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to assert sovereignty and win some points at home, analysts said.
"SCAF wants to demonstrate its anti-American credentials," said Robert Springborg, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who has written extensively on the Egyptian military.
In Egypt, a cross-section of political elites has long resented the NGOs' work on the belief that they were imposing Western values on a conservative Arab Muslim nation.
For years, American and Egyptian nonprofit workers say, authorities have blocked them from full registration and smeared them in state media as foreign provocateurs trying to destabilize Egypt.
On Dec. 29, Egyptian authorities raided the offices of 17 NGOs, including the U.S.-based International Republican Institute, Freedom House and National Democratic Institute. The groups receive U.S. government funding and were conducting candidate training and other activities related to the Egyptian parliamentary elections.
First Published February 6, 2012 12:00 am
