Egypt to close rights group aiding torture victims

Egypt has told a rights group that aids torture victims it will be shut down for financial misdeeds, the group said on Thursday, in what activists called a government effort to quash criticism.

The Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA) said it had received notice it was being dissolved and its assets seized over accusations it had accepted foreign funding without government approval. AHRLA denied any wrongdoing.

Egyptian and international human rights groups dismissed the accusations as political cover for an attempt to silence a group that has raised embarrassing torture cases in court. Government officials had no immediate comment.

London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a statement: "The attack on AHRLA appears to be linked to its active work in supporting victims of torture and exposing human rights violations in Egypt."

"The Egyptian authorities are not only breaching their obligations to respect the right to freedom of association, but also preventing torture victims from receiving valuable independent advice and legal aid in support of their rights."

Activists saw the step as the latest in a series by Egypt to quash political dissent, and they said the charges against AHRLA were similar to those levied unsuccessfully against other critics of Egypt in previous years.

International and local rights groups say torture is systematic in Egyptian jails and police stations. The government says it opposes torture and prosecutes police who practice it.

The government has been particularly sensitive to allegations of torture since a 2006 incident, covertly recorded and circulated on the Internet, in which police were seen sodomising a bus driver with a stick in a Cairo police station.

That incident prompted international outcry.

AHRLA Chairman Tarek Khater said the financial accusations against his group were baseless, and the government was trying to retaliate against it for trying sensitive cases.

He said AHRLA had notified the state that it was receiving funding from abroad, but the government had not responded within the required time frame.

A protest letter signed by many of Egypt's most prominent rights organisations said the decision to close AHRLA was politically motivated and would mark a "showdown between us and this police-minded government". In a similar case in 2002, Egyptian sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim was convicted of illegally taking money from the European Union for his Ibn Khaldoun Center in a ruling, widely criticised abroad, that was ultimately overturned.