Summary:
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The Sharm el-Sheikh climate summit has hurt Egypt’s authoritarian government, which is accused of violating human rights and has drawn widespread criticism for its ongoing oppressive campaign against dissidents and civil society organisations (CSOs). Professor Sahar Aziz of Rutgers University in the US claims in Time magazine that “the Egyptian government has given summit access only to local governmental NGOs who support the regime.
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Amnesty International (AI) said in a stinging statement last week that the arrest of hundreds of people in just the last two weeks in connection with calls for protests during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) serves as a stark reminder of the reality of Egypt’s policy of arbitrary mass detention to stifle dissent.
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away from the conference and under video surveillance.
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The government has also restricted the content of demonstrations to environmental concerns.
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Amnesty International considers these restrictions on people’s ability to demonstrate peacefully in a way that permits them to be seen and heard as excessive and unnecessary.
The Sharm el-Sheikh climate summit has hurt Egypt’s authoritarian government, which is accused of violating human rights and has drawn widespread criticism for its ongoing oppressive campaign against dissidents and civil society organisations (CSOs).
Professor Sahar Aziz of Rutgers University in the US claims in Time magazine that “the Egyptian government has given summit access only to local governmental NGOs who support the regime.”
He emphasises how the Egyptian government has viewed civic society as an “enemy of the state.”
Egypt should use COP27 as an opportunity to set an excellent example. Instead, according to Aziz, author of “The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom,” sponsoring the event appears to be a political ruse to conceal its counterproductive suppression of civil society.
Amnesty International (AI) said in a stinging statement last week that the arrest of hundreds of people in just the last two weeks in connection with calls for protests during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) serves as a stark reminder of the reality of Egypt’s policy of arbitrary mass detention to stifle dissent.
The Supreme State Security Prosecution is now looking into at least 151 detainees, while hundreds more have been arrested and questioned for shorter periods.
“Serious questions about how the authorities will handle those seeking to demonstrate during COP27, an integral component of any UN climate conference, are raised by the arrest of hundreds of people solely because they were suspected of supporting the call for peaceful protests.”
Philip Luther, the Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director for Amnesty International, stated that the Egyptian government “must allow peaceful demonstrators to gather freely and refrain from employing excessive force or arbitrary arrests to dissuade protests.”
“The public relations (PR) effort Egypt is running must not be taken advantage of by world leaders travelling in Sharm El-Sheikh for COP27. Outside of the opulent resort hotels, thousands of people, including journalists, nonviolent protestors, human rights advocates, and political opposition members, continue to be unfairly detained.
They must call on President Abdelfattah al-Sisi to free everyone who has been unjustly detained for defending their human rights. This urgently has to include imprisoned activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who intensified his hunger strike by ceasing to consume water.
According to Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programs Officer at the global civil society alliance CIVICUS, Egypt’s government has a special responsibility to uphold and facilitate the exercise of fundamental freedoms by international law because it is hosting a major conference like COP 27.
International law must include the freedom from arbitrary detention and the right to peaceful protest. As a gesture of good faith, the Egyptian government can easily order the release of political prisoners who have been unlawfully detained. It can also permit rallies to take place without interference.
Gadir Lavadenz, global coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, and Lidy Nacpil, executive director of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, write in a joint op-ed piece from last week that climate conferences are increasingly turning into venues for greenwashing of not only the crimes of the major polluters but also of the regimes and presidencies that are hosting the COP.
As the world’s attention turns to Egypt during COP27, the campaigns to free Alaa and other political prisoners and call for the opening of civic space in Egypt are gathering traction.
Several inquiries on rumours that the official COP app reportedly needs access to the user’s location, email, and images were made during a UN press briefing on November 7.
The UN runs this conference, yet it is in Egypt. What is the UN’s position that this appears to be a data-trolling operation seeking private information and may be following people?
And secondly, it appears that several press outlets and human rights organisations cannot use the wi-fi at COP, a UN meeting. What do you think of those?
We have noticed these stories, Associate Spokesperson Stéphanie Tremblay responded. I’ll begin with the app. First, I won’t comment further on that because this software does not belong to the UN.
However, it’s vital to remember that the UN has its app through the UNFCCC, and everyone there has been urging people to download and utilise it.
Then, as a general rule, “we support press and information freedom. That holds for everyone and everywhere. Access is crucial to us, and we want to ensure that everyone who must work can perform their duties as effectively as possible, according to Tremblay.
According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2022, Egyptian authorities increased their use of abusive Emergency State Security Courts to try nonviolent activists and critics who joined the thousands of other dissidents already housed in the nation’s overcrowded prisons.
Additionally, executions have been drastically increasing as courts handed out death penalties in large-scale trials.
“The government entrenched harsh limits on independent organisations in the 2019 NGO law by issuing implementing regulations in January. Key witnesses imprisoned for months in apparent reprisal for reporting a high-profile gang rape still have illegal travel bans, and the authorities failed to investigate the incident properly.
In addition, HRW claimed that the army in north Sinai continued to impose harsh restrictions on mobility and destroyed hundreds of buildings in the guise of battling the local Islamic State branch Wilayat Sinai (ISIS).
According to HRW, these demolitions probably constitute war crimes.
According to Amnesty International, 766 detainees were freed by-Egyptian authorities in the weeks leading up to the climate conference (6 November–18 November) due to President al-decision Sisi to reinstate the Presidential Pardons Committee (PPC) in April.
Amnesty International, however, has recorded the arrest of double that number during the same period—1,540 persons who were investigated for exercising their right to free speech and association.
Over the last six months, Amnesty International has acquired information from dozens of lawyers who frequently attend interrogations and hearings to renew detention, studied court judgments and other official records, and interviewed former inmates and detainees’ relatives.
Security personnel have recently detained and arrested hundreds of people for having inappropriate content on their phones in Cairo’s downtown and other Egyptian town squares. This is a common strategy used by police before anticipated protests.
According to 11 lawyers in Cairo, Alexandria, Sharqiya, and Dakahliya, most prisoners were freed in hours or days. However, some were transferred to prosecutors, and some are still being pushed into the disappearance.
Abdelsalam Abdelghani, 55, was detained at his house outside of Cairo in September. Prosecutors questioned him on the Facebook group “Our right,” which contained posts encouraging protests on November 11th.
Before ordering his custody pending an inquiry, the prosecutor reportedly questioned him on claims that he was spreading “fake news” and was “a member of a terrorist cell.”
Anyone seeking to organise protests in Sharm El-Sheikh must notify the authorities 36 hours in advance and provide a COP27 badge, according to the Egyptian president of COP27’s website.
Only during the hours of 10:00–17:00 will protests be permitted, far away from the conference and under video surveillance. The government has also restricted the content of demonstrations to environmental concerns.
Amnesty International considers these restrictions on people’s ability to demonstrate peacefully in a way that permits them to be seen and heard as excessive and unnecessary.
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
