Egypt police raid offices of NGO

Egyptian police raided the offices of a NGO affiliated with a leftist former presidential candidate and arrested three employees, the group's director said Thursday. The Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, founded by former candidate Khaled Ali, has supported striking factory workers and defended activists at trials. "Officers stormed the office around 11:30 (Wednesday night, 2130 GMT) and arrested everyone who was there," said the group's director Nadim Mansour. The policemen also confiscated several computers and have taken the arrested employees to an unknown location, Mansour said. Interior ministry officials were not immediately available for comment. Police had raided several foreign NGOs in 2011 after prosecutors accused them of receiving illicit funding from abroad. A court later sentenced 43 of their employees, including US citizens who had left the country, to terms ranging from one to five years in prison. Source: AFP