Brian Whitaker
The right of people to get together and organise
themselves in pursuit of shared interests is one of the building blocks
for a free and open society. It is also something that Arab regimes
fear, since active citizenship undermines their authority.
Consequently, many of them have introduced laws
creating arbitrary powers to restrict, control and otherwise manipulate the activities
of civil society
organisations.
Among Arab countries, association laws (as they are usually known) follow
a general pattern that seems inspired more by the novels of
Franz Kafka than sound principles of governance.
First, they require clubs,
societies and other non-government organisations to register with the
authorities while making it difficult, and in some cases almost
impossible, for them to do so.
Organisations that succeed in
registering then face
a host of bureaucratic and mostly pointless rules
for how they should conduct their affairs. These basically create an
obstacle course to trip up the unwary and often also impose restrictions
on fundraising.
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