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CAIRO The Egyptian authorities have blocked the son of a United States cabinet member and at least five other American employees of two Washington-backed nongovernmental organizations from leaving Egypt in an apparent escalation of a politically charged criminal investigation into foreign-financed groups promoting democracy.
Officials of the group, the International Republican Institute, said the Egyptian authorities had blocked its Cairo chief, Sam LaHood, from boarding a flight at the airport several days ago. His father is Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary and a former Republican congressman from Illinois. Officials of the group said Egyptian legal authorities told them four others, including two other Americans, had been barred from travel outside the country as well.
Officials of its sister organization, the National Democratic Institute, also said on Thursday that six of its employees had been banned from traveling, including three American citizens. It was unclear how many other Americans working at similar groups may also be banned from travel.
The episode comes at a tense moment in relations between Washington and Cairo. A year after a council of generals took power after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, Washington has begun publicly urging them to turn over authority to civilians as soon as possible. And legislators have begun agitating to put new conditions about the transition to democracy on the more than $1.3 billion a year in military aid that the United States sends Egypt, although the Obama administration has shown no inclination to allow such a move.
Egypts ruling military council, in turn, has been suggesting for months that the United States may have been financing nonprofit human-rights groups and democracy-building groups with an agenda to destabilize Egypt, part of a growing drumbeat of anti-Americanism that has emanated from the military-led government. The generals have often sought to blame outbursts of violence in the streets on such foreign interference.
The military council has also kept in place Mubarak-era laws requiring any foreign financing of Egyptian nonprofit organizations to pass through the government and go only to licensed groups. The government rarely issues licenses to genuinely independent civil society groups, ensuring that almost all of them remain in a kind of legal twilight and vulnerable to prosecution including the American-backed groups.
Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak a year ago, the American government has begun providing some financing more directly to Egyptian nonprofit groups without going through the Egyptian government, acting in the expectation that Egypts political transition meant a more open policy toward civil society groups.
But several months ago, the military-led government began a formal legal investigation into foreign financing of Egyptian nonprofits, and it culminated recently in raids by armed police squads who confiscated files, computers and money from four such groups, including the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute. The institutes have close ties to the Congressional leadership and work to promote the practice of electoral democracy in countries around the world.
Lorne W. Craner, president of the International Republican Institute, expressed concern over the investigation and the Egyptian governments refusal to abide by promises to end the case and return documents, computers and cash seized from his organizations and the others.
Here we are all these weeks later and all these assurances later, and things are getting worse, Mr. Craner said in Washington.
The raids ignited a new firestorm of criticism from Congress and the United States State Department. American officials, including Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Ambassador Anne Patterson, both said they had received direct assurance from members of the ruling military council that it would end the raids and return the confiscated property. But officials of the government have subsequently defended the raids as a legitimate part of the investigation and said that no property would be returned until the inquiry was closed.
President Obama has also brought the matter up in a telephone conversation with Egypts acting head of state, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the White House said in a recent statement.
At a previously scheduled press conference in Cairo, Michael H. Posner, an assistant secretary of state responsible for human rights issues, warned repeatedly on Wednesday that before Egypt can get its annual aid from Washington, the administration must certify to Congress that the country is making progress toward democracy.
REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- Americans under criminal investigation for democracy rights work in Egypt have sought protection from possible arrest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo amid escalating tensions over civil liberties between Washington and Egypts military leaders.
The Americans took refuge at the embassy over the weekend after Egyptian authorities barred them from leaving the country during a probe into nongovernmental organizations the army has blamed for fomenting unrest and stoking political turmoil.
U.S. officials did not identify the Americans but at least six are under investigation. One of those forbidden from traveling is Sam LaHood, director of the International Republican Institute, or IRI, in Egypt and son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He and the others could face up to five years in jail.
Embassy officials would not comment on the whether the Americans were staying at their compound in downtown Cairo, a development first reported Monday by the Washington Post.
