In July, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi told Mohamed Fayek, chairman of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), that his goal was to restore security and fight terrorism while respecting the rights and freedoms for which Egyptians have been struggling before the two revolutions of 25 January and 30 June. Has he been successful? Many observers and activists believe human rights were severely eroded in 2014. Egyptians, they say, are losing the freedoms they fought so hard for. “Human rights in 2014 deteriorated,” legal activist Negad Al-Borai told Al-Ahram Weekly. “Many rights have been snatched away, including the right to demonstrate peacefully.” The protest law, issued in November 2013, allows only demonstrations approved by the Ministry of Interior and criminalises those held without permission. NGOs and political parties have repeatedly asked for the law to be changed, but to no avail. “The NCHR is pressing for the law to be amended so that it meets guarantees embedded in the constitution and conforms with international treaties and conventions signed by Egypt,” Fayek told Youm7 newspaper. “We have made little progress. Hopefully the election of a new parliament will be part of the solution.” Dozens of secular activists have been tried, convicted and sentenced to jail for organising or taking part in peaceful demonstrations since the law was passed. Amnesty International characterised the protest law as giving security forces free rein to use excessive, including lethal, force against peaceful demonstrators and a grave threat to freedom of assembly. “Security forces have been handed complete discretion to disperse protests using excessive and lethal force,” says Al-Borai. He is also concerned with the prevalence of torture in Egyptian prisons. A fact-finding committee was formed by interim president Adli Mansour late last year and tasked with investigating the violence that followed the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi. The committee insists “there has been no instance of torture in Egyptian jails since June 30,” though its final report, issued last month, conceded “some detainees may have been abused inside police stations at the time of their arrest or while being transferred to jail.” Veteran political activist and NCHR member George Ishak says the NCHR has been requesting permission to conduct prison visits since September. Thus far, no access has been granted. The committee's report concluded that primary responsibility for the deaths that occurred during and after the violent dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in by police and soldiers lay with Islamist leaders. The sit-in, says committee head Fouad Riyad, began peacefully but soon saw the stockpiling of weapons. The first casualty, he claimed, was a policeman, and it was this that pushed security forces to take a reactionary stance, escalating the violence. While concluding that security forces were fully justified in using lethal force to disperse the protest, the report criticized them for failing to target those carrying arms from amongst the crowd, thus increasing casualty numbers. Riyad condemned the “brutal” treatment of protesters by police. The authorities, he said, must shoulder the responsibility for the number of casualties. The number of deaths remains disputed. The committee's report says 607 civilians and eight police officers died during the Rabaa dispersal. Human Rights Watch placed the figure at more than 1,000 people and referred to the dispersal as a “massacre.” The government reported a death toll of 627 and condemned the HRW report as “misleading.” The committee asked the government to compensate the families of people with no links with violence who were killed in clashes. The committee expressed appreciation for the efforts of security forces to combat terrorism over the last twelve months and called on the state to take human rights into consideration during counter-terrorism operations. Since Morsi's ouster terrorist attacks have claimed the lives of more than 500 security personnel. The Al-Qaeda inspired group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, at the forefront of militant groups launching attacks against security targets, expanded its reach beyond Sinai to carry out attacks in provincial governorates. “We are in a state of war, with the country fighting terrorism,” Ishak told the Weekly. He warned, however, against using such a “war” as a pretext for violating human rights. Gamal Eid, head of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, warns that relying solely on security to counter violence and terrorism is a mistake. “Time and again history shows that security solutions alone cannot counter terrorism and violence.” Fayek argues that Egypt is moving in the direction of strengthening human rights. “I don't agree that human rights in Egypt are being eroded, as campaigns waged against Egypt from abroad seek to suggest. “Our only concern is pre-trial detention. A large number of people are detained on pending cases. There ought to be a cap on the duration of pretrial detention. Real security cannot be achieved without human rights, and there can be no respect for human rights without security.” Eid has rather more concerns than Fayek. Pre-trial custody, he says, is one example among many of the abuse of human rights. “There are, among other things, unfair trials in which death sentences are issued in the first court session, and a host of violations of the right to privacy.” Over the course of the year, the private TV channel Al-Qahera Wal Nas broadcast private calls between revolutionary activists dating from the time the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was in power. The recordings, aired as part of a programme presented by Abdel-Rahim Ali, included tapped calls by Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, co-founders of the 6 April Movement who are serving three-year sentences issued in December 2013 for protesting against the controversial demonstration law, and activists Asmaa Mahfouz, Abdel-Rahman Youssef and former MP Mustafa Al-Naggar. Ali claimed he had more than 5,000 recordings that showed opposition groups “conspiring against state institutions.” Human rights organisations have denounced the release to the media of taped conversations that not only violated the privacy of the callers but were probably obtained illegally in the first place. “There is, too, the problem of the detention of journalists. Eighteen are currently behind bars, the highest number since 1981,” says Eid. More than 500 Egyptian journalists publicly rejected a pledge by private newspaper editors to ban criticism of the police, army and judiciary from their publications, denouncing the move as “blind support” of the authorities. On 26 October private media chiefs vowed to halt “infiltration of publications by elements supporting terrorism.” The editors said they rejected “attempts to cast doubt on state institutions, basic policy choices and to criticise the army, police or judiciary.” A private TV channel announced that it was barring “rumour mongers” — an euphemism for anyone who criticises the government — from political programmes. The declaration by newspaper editors was a response to a call by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi for the public to rally behind the state in the wake of the killing last month of 31 soldiers, the deadliest attack on the army in decades. In a statement posted last month on social media networks hundreds of journalists said that while fighting terrorism was “a duty and an honour” it cannot involve the “voluntary surrender” of freedom of expression. “To confront terrorism by shackling the media and sealing our lips means to offer the nation up as easy prey to the terrorists,” read the statement. November's UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights in Egypt saw member states make hundreds of recommendations, almost twice as many as in 2010, the date of Egypt's last UPR. The figure, says Al-Borai, “says it all.” “More than 300 recommendations, questions and comments from member states were included in the UN outcome report. During Mubarak's rule, in 2010, just before the 25 January Revolution, Egypt received just 165 recommendations.” Minister of Transitional Justice Ibrahim Al-Heneidi had the difficult task of heading the Egyptian delegation to Geneva. In the face of widespread condemnation of his government's human rights record by NGOs and other human rights organisations, Al-Heneidi insisted Egypt had witnessed a qualitative “leap” over the last four years in the state of its human rights. At the end of the meeting Al-Heneidi noted that though “the review covered an exceptional period in the country's history,” Egypt had “passed” with flying colours. He applauded what he described as a “huge leap” in the fields of freedom of expression, opinion and the press. “Human rights and citizens' freedoms are priorities of the national government which is following the political roadmap formulated after the 30 June Revolution. The best evidence of this is the fact I am standing before you as the minister of transitional justice, a ministry founded after 30 June in recognition of the reasons behind the revolution,” Al-Heneidi said in his opening speech to the review. The status of political detainees in Egypt, women's rights and sexual harassment were among the concerns expressed by member states. The protest law, torture and other ill-treatment in places of detention as well as the new NGO draft law were also the focus of criticisms. Days ahead of the scheduled session seven Egyptian NGOs that had earlier submitted reports to the UN withdrew from the UPR's proceedings. They issued a joint statement citing fears that their participation might result in reprisals and possible persecution. Egypt's new NGO law, which required all NGOs to register with the Ministry of Social Solidarity by 10 November, has been widely criticised as an attempt by government to expand its authority over independent organisations. “The UPR comes five days before the end of the government's ultimatum for ‘non-registered entities' to register under repressive Law 84/2002. A number of organisations have attempted to open a dialogue with the government and meet with the prime minister to discuss delaying the ultimatum until a new law is in place that complies with the constitution and Egypt's international obligations… “The government met civil society's attempts at dialogue, however, with cold indifference,” said a joint statement signed by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, Nazra for Feminist Studies and Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance. In July, Bahey Eddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), submitted a memo to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab signed by 23 Egyptian human rights organisations. The memo condemned the new NGO law as “a blatant attack on long-established legal systems regulating activities related to development, academia, and culture” which threatened to destroy any confidence in the legal and judicial systems. Ahead of the UNHRC meeting, local rights groups issued a comprehensive list of state abuses and produced more than 100 recommendations for the Egyptian authorities. They included amending laws that conflict with international treaties to which Egypt is a signatory; amending the protest law to allow freedom of assembly; restricting the use of live ammunition and excessive force by the police and other security personnel; outlawing all forms of discrimination against women; ending routine pre-trial detention and amending constitutional article 204 to ban military trials for civilians. On 27 October Al-Sisi issued a decree allowing civilians who commit crimes against “vital” state facilities or attack military personnel on duty to be referred to military courts. The decree's definition of such facilities includes “stations, power networks and towers, gas and oil fields, rail lines, road networks, bridges.” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the decree represented an “unprecedented expansion of military courts' jurisdiction over civilians.” “This law represents another nail in the coffin of justice in Egypt,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. Fifteen human rights groups voiced serious concerns over the presidential decree, saying it jeopardised citizens' right to fair trials and aggravated the crisis in which Egypt's justice system is floundering. Ishak, though far from happy with the status of human rights in Egypt, is optimistic that improvements will soon be implemented. “The NCHR,” he notes, “has already succeeded in amending the regulations governing Egyptian prisons which is a clear step forward.” New prison regulations, drawn up in September by the Ministry of Interior and the NCHR, focus on the basic rights of prisoners and cover access to healthcare, education and living conditions. They also provide for vocational training. On 18 September the Ministry of Interior issued amendments to prison regulations in the Official Gazette. The amendments stipulate that prisoners will receive a minimum daily wage of LE7 for work and preventative medical check-ups every 15 days. Higher wages can awarded for outstanding technical work or increased production.
