The Egyptian government refused on Monday to give the green light to eight U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) because they do not conform to the state's sovereignty, Xinhua reported.
"Sifting through the organizations' mechanisms, officials found out they don't fit the country's sovereignty," a well-placed source at the Ministry of Insurance and Social Affairs told the official news agency MENA.
If these NGOs are found operating in Egypt without license, they will be subject to law, said the source.
Among the banned NGOs is the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 1982. It applied for a license in Egypt to send monitors to the country' s constituencies to monitor the coming presidential election, said the source.
Earlier this year, Egypt's judiciary referred 43 activists, including 19 Americans, to trials for cases of NGOs, a move that soured Egyptian-U.S. ties as the United States threatened to halt military and economic aid to Egypt.
The accused faced charges of illegally operating in Egypt, receiving funds from abroad without permission of the Egyptian authorities, and creating chaos in the country.
The American workers were allowed to fly home on March 1, a decision that inflamed the Egyptian public opinion.