Brussels, 04/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The leader of the Liberals at the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, condemned, on 4 June, the sentencing that very same day, by an Egyptian criminal court, of 43 people to prison sentences of between one and five years on the pretext that they were working for NGOs not registered in Egypt.
Verhofstadt takes the view (our translation): “It is totally unacceptable that Egypt, which says it is a democracy today, uses a law from Mubarak times to organise repression against NGOs which are there to support democracy”. He went on: “First of all refusing to allow NGOs to register for many years, then imprisoning employees because they work for an NGO that is not registered is a tactic worthy of any dictatorship, not a democratic government. The closure of the NGO offices sounds the death knell of the revolution”. He went on to conclude: “This is one more reason for the EU to reduce its funding to Egypt until that country complies with the norms of rule of law”. (OL/transl.jl)