On June 4, an Egyptian criminal court sentenced 43 people to prison on charges of membership in illegal organizations. It was a familiar scenario for anyone who worked on human rights under Hosni Mubarak, when activists regularly criticized the roundup of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members and their prosecution on the same charges. This time, however, the defendants were Egyptian and international staff of U.S. and German nongovernmental organizations. International law is clear on the issue: Membership in an unregistered organization should not in and of itself amount to a crime.
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