= PICTURE = CAIRO, May 25 (AFP) - The Egyptian parliament on Tuesday approved "in principle" a draft law on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) despite strong protest from human rights groups who denounced it as state repression. But the People's Assembly was expected to continue debate late into the evening in order to formally approve each and every one of the 75 articles which make up the bill, parliamentary sources said. The draft law was "approved in principle" shortly after the start of the debate, the sources said. A spokeswoman for the Centre for Human Rights Legal Aid (CHRLA), which has been at the forefront of a campaign against the bill, declined to comment until MPs resumed their debate later in the evening. Earlier Tuesday 50 NGO activists demonstrated outside the People's Assembly, holding up placards demanding that the bill be scrapped. They also met the chairman of the subcommittee on social affairs, Ahmad Omar Hashem, after being denied an audience with speaker Fathi Srur, and handed him a memorandum calling for a halt to the debates and resumed talks with the NGOs. "If the law is adopted we will not respect it. We will continue our activities even if we risk arrest and legal proceedings," CHRLA director Gasser Abdel Razek told AFP. The proposed law would prohibit NGOs from carrying out "political activities" and prevent them from receiving funds from abroad without authorisation from the social affairs ministry. One of its 75 articles "bans the creation of associations that undermine national unity," giving the social affairs ministry leeway to refuse to register new NGOs within 60 days of their creation. Representatives of Egypt's 105 NGOs issued a statement Tuesday "expressing deep concern and protest" over the draft law. "The new bill takes no account of the talks held over the past year between the government and the NGO sector. They are trying to rush the legislation through with extreme and unexplained haste," it said. Egyptian human rights associations have threatened to launch a campaign of "civil disobediance" if the bill is voted into law. Egyptian human rights activists have asked for a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, when she visits Cairo June 6-7 to express their outrage and seek her support.  