NGOs .. Doubts and Facts !

Ehab El Sheemy

Cairo July 13^th 2020

On June 5^th 2020, IMF concluded a “Staff Level Agreement” with the Egyptian government to provide the country with funds to assist Egypt with tackling the aftermath of the Coronavirus crisis. Despite the fact that the funds aims at strengthening the social safety net, improving fiscal transparency, supporting reforms for growth and job creation, and at maintaining macroeconomic stability, eight NGOs launched an unprecedented fierce attack against the Egyptian Government and issued a joint letter to the IMF, citing concerns about corruption and poor governance in the country, and requesting the International Monetary Fund to delay the vote on the urgent $5.2 billion loan facility to Egypt.

“Recent developments in Egypt regarding governance, transparency, rule of law and corruption lead us to believe that the IMF should include strict requirements to ensure that any additional funds disbursed to that country are used for their intended purpose of supporting inclusive growth, improving fiscal transparency, and increasing health and social spending,” the letter read.

The list included Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Committee for Justice, the Egyptian Human Rights Forum, EuroMed Rights, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Freedom Initiative, Human Rights Watch, and the Project on Middle East Democracy.

Following that, many Egyptian journalists, politicians, and mass media personalities have been involved in a campaign to defend the Egyptian government against those NGOs, and elaborate how things are progressing well in the battle against corruption and the enhancement of both social and health care services and benefits.

In spite of my personal belief that there is still a lot to offer towards the absolute elimination of the corruption that has been rampant in the corridors of governmental and state executive entities for more than seven decades, I cannot deny that much effort has been put in place to activate the role of governance bodies and support their independence to reduce corruption during the past few years, and this is exactly where you have to stop and wonder why such a letter was addressed to the IMF in such a critical time ! If the loan is intended to support the most suffering below or near poverty level class, low income, and middle class, then why should an NGO denies Egypt’s request to acquire such a facility while their ultimate objective as a non-profit organizations is the prosperity and quality of living of the Egyptian people?

Being one of millions of Egyptians who participated in January 2011’s revolution against Mubarak’s regime, I have been engaged in many political and social community events and campaigns. This engagement included the coordination with several revolutionary movements, as well as many professional syndicates, political parties, and NGOs. Accordingly, the following brief overview is not intended to conclude to direct accusations of treason or disloyalty, but rather to invite you to join my quest to find answers and eliminate doubts, worries and uncertainties related to the links and relations between those NGOs and many foreign entities, organizations, and governments.

Understandably, the rising revolutionary movements were far from being hierarchical organizations with clear strategic short and long-term plans, and of course they were severely lacking in funding that was mainly dependent on the donations and contributions and of their young members, or the support of some political figures who sought a revolutionary base through which they can address the Egyptian people and the mass crowds!  

The hierarchical organization, ability to plan, steady funding, as well as access to both media and regional and international human rights organizations was available elsewhere!

The NGOs represented the partner with whom the rising revolutionary movements can cooperate and rely on to achieve the goals of the people’s revolution through the wider window and greater exposure they offer to media and other revolutionary groups, but most importantly to the legal expertise that enables them to overcome the obstacles associated with the detention of many of their comrades who were arrested by the security services during the January revolution and the subsequent events in March referendum, July sit-in, and the bloody events of Muhammad Mahmoud Street. A Perfect and a Real Honest Partner, they thought !

As the revolutionary movement continued, that perfect partner’s image began to fade more and more. Funding revolutionary events has not been less difficult than before, but rather it has become more difficult after adding the extra demands of those NGOs that was not of an added value as the funding continued to be limited to the revolutionary youngsters only! To make things even worse, NGOs exploited these activities to achieve its interim goals that are not related to the ultimate goals of the revolution. They participated in the marches for the release of the detainees when only one is a member of those organizations or a family member of a prominent member. This was exactly the case in the campaign of "Release Egypt "which was launched by a coalition of many revolutionary movements that organized tens of marches across Egypt major cities. NGOs did not really participate until Alaa Abdel Fattah, the political activist and son of Ahmed Saif Abdel Fattah director of Hisham Mubarak Law Center, was detained.

Following this specific incident, a fast rewind for the whole course of engagement with the NGOs was running through my mind. How they did not contribute in our efforts to organize democratic practice awareness sessions for the Egyptian youth during the early months of the revolution, how they did not participate in the sessions of the People’s Committee for the New Egyptian Constitution, how they did not pay any attention to the hundreds of detainees or contribute to bail them out and provide legal support to them,  and most important of all, how they did not join our efforts to expose the violations and breaches made by the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the course of the revolution and during the constitutional amendments referendums until they succeeded to take over the Egyptian Parliament and Presidency, and how this whole NGO story was never about the human rights of the Egyptian People!

One perfect example of that is a NGO that was established in 2002 by a fresh graduate lawyer, aged 24 then, in Cairo. Despite the fact that its chosen name was linked to the “Personal Rights”, it was actually referring to a very specific and unusual type of rights that are completely opposing the cultural and religious beliefs of the Egyptian People rather than their constitutional political, social, economic, freedom of speech, and legal rights! It was the first human rights organization in Egypt to recognize LGBT rights as human rights.

How a fresh graduate young man can establish and run a human rights institution? What are the means of financing such an organization especially with this unusual scope? How could they manage to develop, expand, and recruit many of the well-recognized legal and human rights figures to work for them and be able to extend their scope to include political and the so called “Religious” rights in such a short period of time?

Moreover, the profile of this NGO executive director shows that he serves as an Experts at the Global Freedom of Expression, board chair of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), a member of the board of directors of the Fund for Global Human Rights, and an advisory board member of the Open Society Foundation’s Arab Regional Office and its Justice Initiative. 

This might look as a normal profile for such a human rights defender and activist. However, things are never what they seem!

Global Freedom of Expression was established by Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger in 2014, a man known for his strong support to Al Jazeera in their case against the Egyptian Government in 2016. Moreover, he enhanced the ties with Qatar through several partnership agreements between Colombia University and Qatar Foundation International.  It is also noteworthy that the associate director of the Global Freedom of Expression, Hawley Johnson, completed her Ph.D. in Communications at Columbia University in 2012, and has her M.A. from Columbia University too.

It is no coincidence that Colombia University signed a MoU of partnership with Doha Institute that was founded in Qatar by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. The General Manager and Executive Board Member of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies is Azmi Bishara, the former Israeli Knesset member, and the close adviser to former Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and to his successor, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad. Both Global Freedom of Expression and Doha Institute were founded in 2014 !

Surprisingly, when it comes to one of the other organizations where this guy serves as a board chair, the Executive Director of the ESCR-Net Chris Grove holds a Master of International Affairs and a Master of Philosophy in Anthropology, both from Colombia University, while the ESCR-Net Program Coordinator, Joie Chowdhury, holds a Master of Laws from the Law School of Colombia University too!

Finally, this guy is also an advisory board member of the Open Society Foundation’s Arab Regional Office. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, I have to tell you that Open Society Foundation is an institution that was founded by George Soros, and is considered as the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights!

Following the same principal of “Things Are Never What They Seem”, and following the timeline of the Open Society Foundation, it can be easily realized that they are nothing but one of the tools of the United States to implement and fulfil the objectives of its global plans since the 1980s. In 1984, the Open Society Foundation started as a small institution in Hungary to encourage dissent behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and Russia. In 1986 George Soros opens another foundation in China, which becomes a target for in-fighting between pro- and anti-reform elements in the Communist Party. The foundation closes in 1989, just before the government’s brutal crushing of dissent in Tiananmen Square. 

By the Physical and ideological fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Open Society has established a presence in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Over the next five years, the Open Society Foundations establish a network of offices in Albania, the Baltic States, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia. This pattern continued throughout the 1990s, 2000s in the former Soviet Republics, Indonesia, and ultimately in the Arab Spring Countries after 2011 revolutions. All of those activities are serving the ultimate objectives of the Democratic Party plan to reshuffle the Eastern Europe and the Middle East cards, and create a new Middle East over the ashes of the old one using the Muslim Brotherhood as a wrecking ball, and Qatar as a fuel supplier with its unlimited financial resources, and the refuge that it provides for all militant groups in the Middle East from the shores of the Atlantic in West Africa to the furthest parts of Afghanistan mountains. 

In that context, Soros spent $27 million to try to defeat the Republican President George W. Bush in 2004, and has quietly reemerged as a leading funder of Democratic politics especially those of Hillary Clinton who strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Soros has donated or committed more than $25 million to boost Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates and causes, according to Federal Election Commission records and interviews with his associates and Democratic fundraising operatives. The detailed story can be read in the book tilted The Shadow Party: How Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and the Sixties Left Took Over the Democratic Party.

Now, and after going through the background of only one of the NGOs that work in Egypt, over-viewing how they connect to foreign entities and organizations, and how threads and strings are attaching the whole network of the international partners and sponsors, you can share my concerns, doubts, and join my quest to find answers to the questions about the true objectives those NGOs and human rights organizations really serve and the nature of rights they really refer to !