
Egypt's Court of Cassation (Photo: Ahram)
Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Thursday convictions against 16 NGO workers, including three Americans, and ordered a retrial in the 2012 case commonly known as the “foreign funding case.”
In 2013, an Egyptian court sentenced 43 Americans, Europeans, Egyptians and other Arabs to jail terms ranging from one to five years and ordered their NGOs shut down, after they were convicted on charges including operating without necessary permits and illegally receiving foreign funding.
Many of the foreign nationals in the case were tried in absentia, after being allowed to leave the country in 2012.
The 16 defendants will be retried by the Cairo Criminal Court.
Last May, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi ratified a new law regulating the work of civil society organisations in the country.
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