U.S. Delegation in Egypt Discusses NGO Crisis

On Monday, a delegation of U.S. Congressmen met with Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, as well as other officials and members of parliament (MPs). Arizona Republican Senator John McCain headed the five-member delegation. Lawmakers scheduled the trip prior to the indictment of American employees of U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations operating in Egypt. The trial of the NGO workers is set to begin February 26, though McCain said he had “guarded optimism that this issue will be resolved fairly soon”. The senators also met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice party (FJP). McCain said that Brotherhood MP and Speaker of Parliament Saad Al Katatni “informed us they are working on a new NGO law to update the Mubarak era’s rather restrictive and repressive NGO law.” ”Quite frankly, I’m very optimistic we’re going to get this episode behind us,” said Lindsey Graham (R-SC), another senator in the delegation.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Matt Bradley describes the comments by Sen. McCain and others as “a climbdown from previous threats” to withhold Egypt’s $1.3 billion in military aid, saying the senators “[portrayed] the dispute as little more than an inevitable collision between a new generation of Egyptian reformers and the repressive legal system they inherited.” Steve Clemons says in the Atlantic that “the U.S. needs to be careful of the footprint it maintains in nations that are undergoing such profound political change,” and that embracing the new leaders of post-revolution Egypt “may undermine the legitimacy of those who toppled the previous regime.” A source in Egypt’s judiciary told Egyptian media that the U.S.- funded NGOs are expected to lodge appeals for the operating licenses which officials allege that they failed to obtain. If the licenses are granted during the trial, the source said, that the NGOs would likely be acquitted.