Posts Tagged ‘Egypt’
September 22, 2016
The Laureates of this year’s Right Livelihood Award have been announced today – 22 September 2016 – in Stockholm, Sweden:
SYRIA CIVIL DEFENCE (Syria)
Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets), ‘for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war’. It is the first time that a Right Livelihood Award goes to a Laureate from Syria.…for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war.
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Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Cumhuriyet, Egypt, human rights awards, Mozn Hassan, Nazra for Feminist Studies, Right Livelihood Awards, Russia, Stockholm, Svetlana Gannushkina, Syria, Syria Civil Defence, Turkey
September 18, 2016
Human rights activist Gamal Eid says the case is politically motivated revenge [Asmaa Waguih/Reuters]
An Egyptian court has approved a freeze on the assets of five prominent human rights activists and three non-governmental organisations in a case related to accepting foreign funds without government authorization. Saturday’s decision paves the way for criminal proceedings against the defendants, who have been accused of “pursuing acts harmful to national interests”. They face life sentences of up to 25 years each if found guilty. The rulings can be appealed.
Gamal Eid, a vocal critic of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, is among those affected by the order of the Cairo Criminal Court. “We know from the start the case is political and the aim is revenge against NGOs that expose the state’s abuses,” said Eid, the head of the Cairo-based Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
The assets of Hossam Bahgat, the founder and former director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, will also be frozen. The court also froze the assets of three organisations and their directors; the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and its director Bahey el-Din Hassan, the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre and its director Mostafa al-Hassan, and the Egyptian Right to Education Centre and its director Abdelhafiz Tayel. Bahgat, Eid, and nine others are also banned from travel in connection to the case that has been going on since 2011.
Amnesty International described the court order as a “shameless ploy to silence human rights activism”. Egyptian rights activists say they are facing the worst assault in their history amid a wider campaign to erase freedoms won in a 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Independent United Nations experts said in April that Egypt is closing down domestic NGOs and putting travel bans on their staff in order to obstruct scrutiny of human rights issues. See earlier posts: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/egypt/
Source: Egypt court freezes assets of rights defenders and NGOs – News from Al Jazeera
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 3 Comments »
Tags: Abdelhafiz Tayel, Al-Jazeera, Bahey eldin Hassan, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Egypt, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, foreign funding, freezing assets, Gamal Eid, Hossam Bahgat, Human Rights Defenders, Mostafa al-Hassan
September 7, 2016
The recent report SHACKLED FREEDOMS : WHAT SPACE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE EUROMED? depicts the obstacles and repression against civil society in the region and showcases first-hand accounts from Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories among others. The report also features recommendations by CSOs for joint action and seeks to influence EU policies to that effect. The report also focuses on the impact of security and anti-terrorist policies and lists the growing arsenal of repressive measures – both in law and practice – that civil society organizations (CSOs) face on a daily basis: judicial harassment, surveillance, arbitrary arrests, torture and assassination.
Despite legal safeguards and the human rights “shared values” rhetoric in the EU, EuroMed Rights argues that European civil society is under increasing pressure. Austerity measures and anti-terrorism laws are increasingly used to legitimise practices that go against individual freedoms and rights of assembly, association and expression, such as in France, Spain or the UK, for instance. The report – published on 7 September 2016 – is the result of a seminar organised in April 2016 as an open dialogue between EU representatives, South Mediterranean activists and Brussels-based CSOs.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT
Source: Shackled Freedoms : What Space for Civil Society in the EuroMed? – EuroMed Rights – Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network
Posted in books, EMHRN, EU, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Algeria, anti-terrorist laws, Civil society, Egypt, enabling environment, EU, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, euroMed Rights, Europe, freedom of association, harassment, Human Rights Defenders, Israel, Israeli-occupied territories, Mediterranean, Morocco, report, Syria, Tunisia, western Sahara
June 9, 2016
Today, 9 June 2016, Egypt‘s wrongfully detained scholars and students received the 2016 Courage to Think Defender Award during the SAR Global Congress in Montreal, Canada. This is in recognition for their commitment to exercising the right to think, share and question ideas despite tremendous risks. SAR selected student representatives to accept the award in order to recognize their efforts to conduct research and advocacy on behalf of threatened scholars and students around the world. “The students are vital to raising awareness around cases of imprisoned scholars and students like these, and to promoting academic freedom globally and locally,” said Clare Robinson, Advocacy Director at SAR.
Over the past several years, SAR has observed an overwhelming crackdown on Egypt’s higher education community, including the reported use of violence, wrongful prosecutions and imprisonment, professional retaliation and travel restrictions against scholars and students across the country. According to data obtained by the Egyptian NGO, Association for Free Thought and Expression, over 2,000 university students and professors have been detained by security forces since July 2013.
SAR has presented the award only twice before, in 2011 to Aryeh Neier for his long career dedicated to free inquiry and expression including as the chair of the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Foundations, and in 2015 to Dean Habib Kazdaghli of Manouba University in Tunisia for defending his university from extremist pressures after the Arab Spring, including in the face of prosecution and death threats.
[Scholars at Risk: Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of higher education institutions and individuals working to protect threatened scholars, promote academic freedom and prevent attacks on higher education communities around the world since 2000. SAR protects scholars suffering grave threats to their lives, liberty and well-being by arranging positions of sanctuary for those forced to flee, and advocating for scholars facing prosecution, imprisonment or other restrictions through the Scholars-in-Prison Project. SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project identifies and reports attacks on higher education to protect vulnerable scholars and students, hold perpetrators accountable and prevent future violations. Institutions or individuals interested in learning more about SAR and its activities should visit http://www.scholarsatrisk.org or email scholarsatrisk@nyu.edu]
see also: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/scholars-at-risk-publishes-first-academic-freedom-monitoring-report-free2think/
Posted in awards, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Academic freedom, Courage to Think Defender Award, Egypt, Habib Kazdaghli, human rights award, Montreal, SAR, scholars, Scholars at Risk, students
June 8, 2016
On 8 June 2016 Human Rights Watch asked the Egyptian authorities to stop persecuting a lawyer and two judges who engaged in the suspicious activity of proposing an anti-torture law!!!
Negad al-Borai with judges Hesham Raouf and Assem Abd el-Gabbar who drafted the anti-torture law proposal to bring Egyptian law in line with the United Nations Convention . © 2015 Private
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Tags: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, anti-torture campaign, Assem Abd al-Gabbar, Egypt, Hesham Raouf, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, judicial harasment, Nadim Houry, Negad al-Borai, United Group law firm, United Nations Convention Against Torture
April 25, 2016
Posted in Front Line, HRF, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, UN | 2 Comments »
Tags: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Bahey eldin Hassan, Ban Ki-moon, Brian Dooley, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, demonstrations, Egypt, FCO, foreign funding, Gamal Eid, Giulio Regeni, Hossam Bahgat, Malek Adly, Nazra for Feminist Studies, Sanaa Seif, Yasser El-Qot
March 23, 2016
It is usually Norway that leads the negotiations on the resolution on human rights defenders as is the case this year at the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council. The resolution this year takes account of the severe risks that human rights defenders face when defending economic, social and cultural rights, including as they relate to environmental, land and development issues, corporate responsibility, anti-corruption, transparency and accountability issues. The draft resolution calls on States to take effective and practical steps to address the continuing violations of the rights of defenders.
During the first week of this session of the Human Rights Council, Norwegian State Secretary Tore Hattrem stated that “Threats and attacks against human rights defenders who are exercising their right to freedom of speech to advocate economic, social and cultural rights, severely hamper the realisation of these rights”. Also Ambassador Steffen Kongstad raised this important topic during the interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Michel Forst, stating that “Threats and attacks against human rights defenders may hamper the realization of economic, social and cultural rights, undermining social cohesion, and ultimately stability and development”.
The resolution has been discussed in several open informal consultations in Geneva, taking into account a number of suggestions from different countries. Norway formally tabled the resolution on 16 March full text see website. There are currently around 50 countries from all regional groups that will co-sponsor the resolution. Still, this is far from won as earlier this week a number of countries (including the serial offenders Russia, China, Egypt, Cuba and Pakistan) have put forward 31 adverse amendments to the text. These amendments include proposals which have the purpose or would have the effect of:
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, UN | 4 Comments »
Tags: China, Cuba, draft resolution, Egypt, ESC rights, Geneva, hostile amendments, Human Rights Defenders, NGOs, Norway, Pakistan, Resolution, Russia, Tore Hattrem
January 28, 2016
Five years ago, human rights defender Ahmed Abdullah was among thousands of Egyptians who took to the streets for 18 days of mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, eventually forcing then-President Hosni Mubarak to step down and the security forces to retreat. Today, Ahmed is on the run. He dodged arrest by the thinnest of margins on January 9, after plainclothes police in Cairo raided his regular coffee shop. The NGO which he chairs, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, had recently exposed a surge in enforced disappearances, which has seen hundreds vanish at the hands of state security forces over the last year alone. He is not the only one whose activism has put him at risk. In recent weeks, security forces have been rounding up activists linked to protests and journalists critical of the government’s record. This how Amnesty International starts its assessment of the fifth anniversary and it concludes: “Five years since the uprising that ousted Mubarak, Egypt is once more a police state. The country’s ubiquitous state security body, the National Security Agency, is firmly in charge.”
The same sentiment is echoed in the long piece in the Huffington Post of 25 January 2016 by Karim Lahidji, President of FIDH and Bahey eldin Hassan, Director of Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
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Posted in Amnesty international, CIHRS, FIDH, Front Line, HRF, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Ahmed Abdullah, Ahmed Malik, Amnesty International, Arab spring, Bahey eldin Hassan, condoms video, Egypt, FIDH, Foreign Policy of the USA, Front Line, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights First, Karim Lahidji, Malek Adly, Sanaa Seif, Shady Hussein Abu Zaid, Tahrir Square
December 1, 2015
Ismail’s wife, Khadeega Gafar, rings alarm bell [Khadeega Gafar]
Ismail Alexandrani was detained after flying back from Berlin, where he attended counter-terror summit. The Egyptian investigative journalist and human rights activist was arrested after being questioned at Hurghada International Airport, his wife said, adding that the accusations or charges against him have still not been revealed.
Since 2013, Egyptian authorities have cracked down on freedom of expression after the ouster of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Angelita Baeyens, programmes director at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation in Washington DC, said that Egypt’s crackdown on free speech is of “deep concern”.”Although the charges against Alexandrani, if any, and the particular circumstances of his detention have not yet been made clear,” she said, “the ongoing harassment of activists, independent journalists, and human rights defenders in Egypt remains a deep concern and raises serious questions about the country’s commitment to respecting the rights of its citizens to freedom of expression and association.”
“Some members of the Muslim Brotherhood attended [the Berlin conference], but Ismail is critical of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Khadeega Gafar said “The security services know this. He’s criticised them [the Muslim Brotherhood] on social media. he is anti-Muslim Brotherhood”
A state security prosecution hearing is expected in New Cairo on Tuesday morning, added Gafar, who is in touch with human rights organisations and lawyers. “How can I express how I am feeling? I am not in a good state,” she said. “I am not in communication with him, so every piece of information comes to me with a contradiction. I have no life for now. It’s just about finding out where he is, whether he is OK, and what he is accused of.”
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 3,700 civilians have been charged in military courts since October 2014, when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi expanded the jurisdiction of military courts for a two-year period. Many of those civilians were charged in the military courts “for acts related to protesting and [alleged affiliation with] the Muslim Brotherhood”.
Source: Award-winning Egyptian reporter held on unknown charges
Posted in HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, detention, Egypt, freedom of expression, HRW, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, Ismail Alexandrani, Journalist, Khadeega Gafar, military courts, MWC News, RFK Human Rights
June 2, 2015
Egypt’s Abdel Fattach El Sisi is due to meet German chancellor Wednesday 3 June
On the eve of the visit to Germany by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a number of leading international human rights organisations (AI, HRW, EMHRH, OMCT and Front Line) wrote an open letter to the German chancellor Ms Angela Merkel. It reads in essence: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in AI, EMHRN, FIDH, Front Line, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OMCT | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Azza Soliman, death penalty, detention, Egypt, Esraa Abdel Fattah, foreign funding, freedom of demonstration, Germany, Human Rights Defenders, Law No 107 (the Protest Law), Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, Maheinour El-Massry, Mohamed Lotfi, Mohamed Ramadan, women human rights defenders, Youssef Shaban
The Laureates of this year’s Right Livelihood Award have been announced today – 22 September 2016 – in Stockholm, Sweden:
