Political forces are establishing civil society organizations (CSOs) amid rising controversy about whether civil organizations should be mixed with with political action, especially with increased foreign funding of civil society.
Controversy escalated when the Muslim Brotherhood established a CSO to disable the rule of the State Commissioner’s Authority to dissolve it, and eight months earlier, the April 6 Youth Movement (A6YM) founded a CSO named April 6 Youth Movement for Development.
Intuitive developmental and political action
Political forces are establishing civil society organizations (CSOs) amid rising controversy about whether civil organizations should be mixed with with political action, especially with increased foreign funding of civil society.
Controversy escalated when the Muslim Brotherhood established a CSO to disable the rule of the State Commissioner’s Authority to dissolve it, and eight months earlier, the April 6 Youth Movement (A6YM) founded a CSO named April 6 Youth Movement for Development.
Intuitive developmental and political action
Khaled Masri, a member of the A6YM Political Office, said A6YM established its organization as a development and awareness arm to be legally able to monitor the constitution referendum and protect its staff against the regime’s continuous onslaught.
When asked about the fact that this association violated the law, since CSOs were prohibited to be involved in politics, he said the law was inconclusive in this regard, suggesting that A6YM along with many political forces presented a CSO draft law that allowed CSOs to practice politics, but the Shura Council ignored it.
As for foreign financing, Masri explained that it was an exaggerated political charge, especially since A6YM was fully funded by its members or some domestic donations by “national businessmen”, such as Vodafone and Coca-Cola. And on their differences with the Brotherhood, he stressed that A6YM did not seek, as did the Brotherhood, to establish a political party followed by a CSO and that A6YM was a lobby and a group of awareness and development activities, whose political objectives were to realize the revolution goals away from competition over the parliament seats.
Covering political corruption with civil action
Lawyer and human rights activist Abdullah Khalil described the technique of covering political action with a civil one as legalization of political corruption. According to him, international treaties and human rights norms provide for separating human rights and political action. The Brotherhood and A6YM, he says, manipulate the Party Law and CSO Law where their CSOs aim at covering their financial corruption, wondering about the position of these CSOs toward foreign financing. For example, is it permissible – according to him – to use funds from foreign countries in the campaigns run for presidential or parliamentary elections as some forces did in recent elections? Khalil suggested that the Brotherhood, through passing the new law, tried to manipulate human rights action and formulate militias protected by a defective law.
Advanced monitoring of funders by law
Ahmed Abdurrahim, a Brotherhood MP and secretary of the Shura Council Manpower Development and Local Administration Committee, denied that the Brotherhood resorted to register itself as a CSO to avoid dissolution but rather to comply with the law and its obligations. He pointed out that the Brotherhood had been trying to register its CSO for many years, but the former regime had disrupted the settlement of its legal status to keep it illegal and keep defaming it through claiming that its budget had not been audited by the Central Auditing Organization (CAO).
Abdurrahim defended the civil action bill currently discussed by the Shura Council, explaining that the bill did not take sides of any party and would establish committees to monitor the CSOs’ activities and funding, including a coordinating committee that would work with CAO and the Ministry of Social Solidarity to monitor the fund’s spending methods and the nature of donors. Then, there is no room to talk about mixing political and civil action.
About the Brotherhood CSO’s activities, he said it would only carry out developmental activities since the Brotherhood had its own political party. He however, did not explain the exact interval between the two ideas.
