CAIRO: The Egyptian Central Bank circulated a memo on Sunday to several national and investment banks in Egypt requesting specific accounting information for 28 NGOs based in Egypt. The memo is reported to have been sealed and labeled “highly confidential and important,” according to Rosaonline.com. The Central Bank requested a reply to the memo within the hour. The Central Bank specifically requested information pertaining to the organizations' accounts, bank balances, and the people directly responsible for them. “Of course it [the inquiry] is problem, but if they think that it's going to stop human rights activism in Egypt, they are wrong,” stated Aida Seif el-Dawla, director of the El Nadim Center for psychological rehabilitation of victims of violence, in an interview with Bikyamasr.com. “These are the same tactics used against NGOs as under the Mubarak regime,” she added. El Nadim Center is one of 28 organizations that the Central Bank is inquiring into. Others include the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, Freedom House, and The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Egypt's minister of planning and international cooperation, Faiza Aboul-Naga, has stated that she is on fact-finding committee seeking information on civil-society organizations that receive funding from abroad, as such funding concerns national security. Aboul-Naga is the same government official that the ANHRI has accused of leading a smear campaign against civil-society organizations in Egypt. “This unfair campaign was initiated by the Egyptian government almost four months ago against the Egyptian civil society organizations, particularly rights organizations after they had addressed the flagrant violations against thousands of Egyptians, among of which military trials, virginity tests, the restoration of a censor on mass media, and attempts to besiege press freedom,” stated the ANHRI in a press release at the end of last month. BM
