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Of the four Egyptians charged from NDI, three of them worked forme. At every turn when I was pressured to leave, I couldn tstomach it, says Robert Becker , who worked for the National Democratic Institute , an organization loosely affiliated with the Democratic Party in the US that promotes democracy abroad. You don t walk awayfrom your colleagues. He and Sherif Mansour who resigned from his job at Freedom Housein Washington, D.C. , to face trial are among 43 people charged with operatingnongovernmental organizations without a license and receivingillegal foreign funding. Four of the five organizations involvedare US-based organizations receiving American funding; at least 16of the defendants are American. Those not present are tried inabsentia. All deny the charges and call the case a politicallymotivated crackdown on rights and democracy groups. NDI and the Republican-affiliated International Republican Institute (IRI) had been operating in Egypt for years, and had both applied forlicenses under restrictive Mubarak-era laws intended to curtail theactivities of civil society organizations. But US funding forpro-democracy organizations in Egypt has long been controversialwith Egyptian authorities. They never granted or denied theregistration requests, keeping the organizations in a legal grayarea. The government was aware of the activities of bothorganizations, and had even accredited their employees to act asofficial election observers in parliamentary elections last fall.Freedom House applied last year for a license to set up a Cairo office. When the case was brought early this year, tensions increasedbetween the US and Egypt, as Egyptian state media accused the civilsociety workers of being spies and working to destabilize Egypt,and authorities slapped a travel ban on the foreigners connected tothe case. All of the American IRI and NDI employees except Beckersought refuge in the US embassy to avoid possible arrest until theUS paid millions of dollars in bail and whisked the Americans andother foreigners away in a private jet. Becker refused to shelter in the embassy or to board the plane. Hehas since been laid off from NDI. The native of Washington, DC, isa veteran Democratic political campaign manager. He has managedsuccessful congressional campaigns in the US, and also has workedabroad in places like Indonesia . We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Precision Machined Parts , Aluminium Die Casting Mould Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Plastic Injection Moulds.
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