The foundations affiliated with Germany's major political parties are playing an important role in the upheavals in the Middle East, attracting the attention of the region's rulers -- and making them the targets of harassment. The organizations' troubles are by no means limited to Egypt, where the offices of one German organization were recently searched.

Konrad Adenauer Foundation Cairo office chief Andreas
Jacobs spent hours being questioned by an investigative
judge. Photo by dpa.

When Andreas Jacobs tried to enter his office at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Cairo on Dec. 29, 2011, he encountered heavily armed members of the security services at the door. Inside, the Egyptian police were searching the offices of the organization, which is affiliated with Germany's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. The authorities seized computers and documents, and the office manager later spent hours being questioned by an investigative judge. The government officials justified their actions by claiming that the foundation had "opened offices in Egypt in an illegal manner and therefore violated the law."

The German foundation in Cairo is one of 17 Egyptian and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have come under close scrutiny by the country's ruling military council. This is partly the result of their critical view of the regime. In a November report, Jacobs complained that the human rights situation in Egypt was, once again, just as catastrophic as it had been under former dictator Hosni Mubarak, and that "the ruling military leaders are trying to delay or even obstruct the political transition." This isn't the sort of thing Egypt's military rulers like to read.

The Adenauer Foundation's office is now open again, after Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle applied pressure to the government during his visit to Cairo last week. But this is no guarantee against acts of repression. The Egyptian military government is nervous.

In Germany, six non-profit foundations are affiliated with an equal number of political parties represented in the federal parliament, the Bundestag. The incident in Cairo illustrates how difficult overseas work can be for these foundations. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, aligned with the center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPD, is the largest, with 90 offices abroad, while the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated with the Green Party, is the youngest. Although their individual agendas may differ, all of these foundations are advocates of democracy, human rights and social justice.