Excerpts: Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali who "is a part of Egypt’s delegation headed by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi that is partaking in the United Nations General Assembly, denied that the ministry received directives from any international, regional or local bodies on the work of NGOs in Egypt. She further stated that Egypt does not consult on the issue."

"Under Law 84/2002, NGOs cannot receive foreign funding without permission from the Minister of Social Solidarity, and the government has the authority to dissolve NGOs without a court order. The law is described by prominent rights organisations in Egypt as repressive and violating the constitution. Calls by the organisations to engage with the government in dialogue on the role of civil society organisations in Egypt and the government’s fears and apprehensions about these groups were not met with a response."

The Minister "stated 1,100 NGOs have been banned and 571 dissolved."

 “Here is the question, are the organisations she mentioned dissolved/banned by individual judicial rulings, or through administrative decrees?” a human rights activist questioned.

C. Hulsman, our Center for Arab-West Understanding is an Egyptian NGO and I would describe experiences with the Ministry and procedures as "bureaucratic" but on the other hand one needs to note that much of Egypt's government bureaucracy is very bureaucratic and Egyptians can be very clever of trying to circumvent bureaucracy with bureaucrats then trying to close loopholes but with this only tend to increase bureaucracy. The system is not perfect but neither are solutions to the problems experienced. It would be good to know the reasons of banning and dissolving such a large number of NGOs. It seems likely that a large percetage of these NGOs had Muslim Brotherhood affiliations. But transparency, explanations, is better than guessing.