CAIRO, Jan 14 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt strongly condemned on Saturday the European Union's (EU) criticism of an Egyptian court ruling to freeze assets of two human rights organisations and their directors.

A Cairo court froze on Wednesday the assets of Nazra for Feminist studies, the Arab Penal Reform Organisation and their respective directors Mozn Hassan and Mohamed Zaree over charges of illegally receiving foreign funds.

Hassan and Zaree are both involved in the high-profile NGO foreign funding case, which brought heavy criticism of the human rights' situation in the country. The case involves other prominent human rights defenders in Egypt including the founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Hossam Bahgat and the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Gamal Eid.

In a statement, the EU said then that the Egyptian court's decision "continues a worrying trend of restricting space for civil society to operate in Egypt.

It added that it is essential that" all the guarantees stipulated in the Egyptian Constitution regarding freedom of expression and association are fully implemented and upheld."

The foreign ministry in response expressed Egypt's rejection of "the insistence of some countries and organisations on adopting an erroneous approach and double standard measures in dealing with Egypt".  

It also urged authorities that "proclaim themselves arbiters of other states and societies to judge their legal, judicial and internal traditional norms and customs" to direct their attention to their "flawed political and social" internal affairs.

The ministry also stressed Egypt's commitment to support civil society organisations in Egypt.