The Government of Egypt has submitted a new draft law on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to the Shura Council (People's Assembly) for approval. The final version of the draft is highly restrictive and, if passed, will have a detrimental impact on the work of human rights defenders in Egypt.

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The new draft NGO law allows the government to control the membership, management and funding of NGOs in Egypt. It introduces compulsory registration for all organisations and criminalises any unregistered organisation. It also effectively bans any NGO registered as a private company from operating. This point is particularly worrying since several prominent NGOs in Egypt are registered as businesses in order to get around restrictions under the NGO law currently in force.

The draft law will also create a General Union of Associations and a Regional Federation of Associations empowered with overseeing the overall activity of civil associations and NGOs. The law provides that NGOs must be a member of both these new entities. According to this draft law, the President would appoint one third of the members of the General Union and the Union's President would be either a former minister or former military officer. The compulsory membership of the General Union of Associations, as well as the power given to the government by the legislature to dictate the powers and functions of NGOs and the formation of its leadership, constitute a violation of international standards in relation to the right to freedom of association.

It is believed that the current push to pass this new draft NGO law is an effort to further restrict civil society's monitoring activities during the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

This new draft NGO law is reportedly even more restrictive than Law 84, the current NGO law, which was passed on 3 June 2002. Law 84 provided the government with a number of political controls over the work of NGOs, including the power to restrict their access to foreign funding and their ability to join international associations.

Front Line believes that the new draft NGO law is in clear violation of international standards in relation to the right to freedom of association.