One of the recommendations that we think is important for Canada to pursue is the freedom of expression and association. We think this is one of the spheres that may be affected by military rule, but also by the mounting force of conservative views of Islam that would forbid some ways of talking or broadcasting or speaking by everybody.
Most recently, there was a ruling of three months in prison against one of the famous Egyptian actors, Adel Imam, for movies that he actually did in the nineties and in the beginning of the year 2000.
It is important to amend the penal code to actually remove all articles that criminalize freedom of expression.
I mentioned association as well. There is a new association law being discussed in parliament. The government proposed a law that would basically nationalize non-governmental organizations, meaning kill them all by making all employees in such NGOs actually in the state, as if they were state employees, and putting in place impossible requirements to operate freely from government interference.
This law has fortunately been fought in parliament by civil society and also by the Muslim Brotherhood, and it was eventually withdrawn.
There are two drafts at the moment. One draft is proposed by civil society itself and one is proposed by the Muslim Brotherhood. It's important that both of them feed into a discussion that would guarantee freedom of association and independent NGOs operating in the country, without banning foreign funding to such NGOs and without interference from the government over registration or allowing the government to dissolve such NGOs. That's whether it's on the basis of security grounds, as the current military likes to call it, or on the basis of moral grounds, as some political parties from political Islam would like to call it.