Amnesty International has sharply called on Egyptian authorities to amend the country’s NGO law and lift what it describes as “a stranglehold on the work” of independent civil society groups, warning that the existing framework undermines basic freedoms and threatens the future of Egypt’s civic space.
In a report published Monday under the title “Whatever security wants, goes: the restriction of independent associations in Egypt,” Amnesty details how Law 149 of 2019, alongside other state practices, grants sweeping, security‑led oversight over NGOs and imposes burdensome requirements that effectively keep them under near‑total state control.
Amnesty said that despite the closure last year of case no. 173, the long‑running “foreign funding” investigation that dragged on for 13 years, the 2019 law still maintains “a stranglehold on the work of independent organizations” over independent associations, threatening their right to operate freely.
In March 2024, Judge Ahmed Qatlan, appointed to investigate the foreign funding case first opened in 2011, announced that the probe had ended for lack of evidence. The decision covered several rights centers and civil society groups.
At the time, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights' director Hossam Bahgat told Al Manassa “We’re relieved this injustice has been lifted, and our reputations restored, and we await an official apology for the material and moral harm.”
In Tuesday’s report, Sarah Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said lifting travel bans and unfreezing assets of NGO workers was a “a noteworthy development.”
However, she stressed that authorities have “continued to enforce the restrictive 2019 associations law” and instead used it to enforce onerous, security‑designed requirements while “enabling security interference that severely limits organizations’ operations, funding, and registration.” These practices, she said, “create a chilling effect that deters associations from exercising their rights for fear of reprisals.”
Hashash added that international law requires restrictions on associations to be narrowly defined, strictly necessary and proportionate. She urged authorities to replace the prior‑licensing system with a notification process, protect NGOs from National Security Agency interference and lift unjustified limits on funding.
Citing the Ministry of Social Solidarity’s Central Unit for Associations, the report highlights how prior-licensing measures violate the Egyptian constitution and international standards, which grant legal personality upon notification.
Crucially, these procedures allow the state to delay or block registration, restrict activities, obstruct funding, or interfere in board formation and dismiss members.
Amnesty also highlights National Security Agency interference, saying the agency harasses NGO workers with threatening phone calls, informal summons and coercive questioning.
The report draws on interviews with 19 people from 12 independent NGOs operating in social development, media and human rights in Cairo between March and July 2025, in addition to a review of official documents from supervisory bodies.
Human rights groups have long opposed Egypt’s NGO laws. In 2019, ten organizations rejected the draft of Law 149 as it was debated in parliament, arguing it merely rebranded “the most draconian provisions of the 2017 law and that most changes are cosmetic” They also viewed it as an attempt to circumvent Article 75 of the constitution, which mandates that associations be established by notification.
At the time, critics argued the law would allow government and security officials to interfere in NGOs’ daily operations and would penalize any employee who deliberately obstructs administrative oversight with fines ranging from 50,000 to 500,000 Egyptian pounds.
Before the current law was enacted, several administrative court rulings had invalidated security interference in the formation and election of NGO boards. These included a 2007 ruling overturning the exclusion of a citizen from running for the board of a community development association in East Stadium, Banha, on security grounds.
