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The Observatory (FIDH-OMCT) joins 32 human rights organisations in calling on the Egyptian government to lift arbitrary travel bans and asset freezes imposed on three directors of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and to end the targeting of human rights defenders for their legitimate work.
December
4, 2024
The
Egyptian government must immediately lift the arbitrary travel bans
and asset freezes imposed upon three directors of the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a prominent Egyptian human
rights organisation, solely for their legitimate human rights work, a
coalition
of 34 rights
groups said today, four years after the men were released from prison
following an international outcry at their persecution.
The
then EIPR Executive Director Gasser
Abdel Razek,
Administrative Director Mohamed
Bashir,
and then Criminal Justice Unit Director Karim
Ennarah
were arrested between November 15-19, 2020. Following significant
domestic and international pressure, the three were released on
December 3, 2020 pending investigations in Case No 855/200.
However,
upon their release all three men had travel bans imposed on them,
preventing them from leaving the country, and on December 6, 2020,
their assets were frozen by the Anti-Terrorism Circuit of the Cairo
Criminal Court. Since then, four years after the court's decision,
neither they or their lawyers have been allowed to access case
documents for Case No. 855/2020, under which they were accused of
offences such as joining a terrorist group and spreading false news.
The authorities have never produced any evidence for these baseless
charges. On December 7, 2020, a group of UN
experts
stated in relation to the case that, “no human rights defender
should face financial restrictions, criminalisation, bail conditions
or be imprisoned for their legitimate human rights work.”
EIPR
has submitted multiple appeals to the courts regarding these punitive
measures, including most
recently to the Supreme Judicial Council,
but, in violation of Egyptian law, have not been granted any court
session to challenge them.
In
April this year, the Egyptian government closed Case 173 of 2011, the
notorious “civil society organisations case”, after 13 years,
leading to the lifting of travel bans and asset freezes against a
number of civil society representatives, including EIPR current
executive director Hossam
Bahgat.
However, as Abdel Razek, Bashir and Ennarah were arrested and
prosecuted in a separate case, this decision had no effect on them.
Egypt continues to witness a
protracted human rights crisis fuelled by impunity and disregard to
rule of law. Egyptian
civil society organisations and NGO workers continue to face severe
repression from the authorities, including arbitrary detentions and
unjust convictions, a restrictive NGO law, and widespread
restrictions on their rights to freedom of association, peaceful
assembly, and expression. In recent months, authorities have taken
steps to amend the Criminal Procedures Law, which the Egyptian
authorities are already
violating
in the ongoing case against the EIPR staff. Egyptian and
international human rights groups have raised serious concerns about
this draft law further enabling violations of fair trials, and
according
to
several UN special procedures mandate holders, “some of the
amendments seem to violate provisions of the Egyptian Constitution
and thereby undermine constitutionally protected rights and
freedoms.”
In
January 2025, Egypt will have its human rights record examined by
other governments at the United Nations Human Rights Council in
Geneva, in what is known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
The
organisations call upon States that will make recommendations to the
Egyptian government in a dedicated session on January 28, 2025, to
ensure that they use the opportunity to call for the lifting of all
travel bans, asset freezes and other punitive measures against human
rights defenders, including EIPR’s staff members, and to end the
targeting of human rights defenders and human rights organisations
solely for their legitimate work.
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