Egypt: President Should Act to Unshackle Freedoms
Egypt
In a joint statement, Lawyers for Lawyers alongside 63 organizations from around the world call on the Egyptian authorities, including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to take immediate action to end the Egyptian authorities’ wholesale crackdown on independent organizations and peaceful dissent. The statement was an initiative from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS).
More than 30 countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a joint statement on 12 March 2021 expressing their deep alarm over “the trajectory of human rights in Egypt and share[d] the concerns expressed by the [UN] High Commissioner for Human Rights and [UN] Special Procedure mandate holders.”
Our organizations have been calling for the establishment of a monitoring and reporting mechanism on Egypt at the Human Rights Council and will continue to do so until there is meaningful and sustained improvement in the country’s human rights situation.
We remain greatly concerned over the arbitrary arrest, detention and other judicial harassment of human rights defenders. Those held unjustly include lawyers Mahienour al-Massry, Haytham Mohamdeen and Hoda Abdelmoniem. Other points of concern such as arbitrary detention, cruel and inhuman prison conditions, and the deliberate denial of adequate medical care are also included in the statement.
The signatories urge President al-Sisi to order and ensure full implementation of a set of recommendations to secure tangible improvements in the human rights situation in Egypt and to ensure that Egypt complies with its international obligations. Among other things, the recommendations call for creating a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders and immediately and unconditionally releasing anyone held for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly; and release others detained arbitrarily. Read the full set of recommendations in the statement.