Egypt has maintained its position on the list of “unfree” states in the annual report on the state of freedoms in 2010 issued on Thursday by Freedom House, a DC-based international non-governmental organization, known for its close ties also to the US government foreign policy. On a scale of one to seven--one being the best rating and seven the worst--Egypt scored a six on political freedoms, and a five on civil society freedom. Freedom house said it was issuing a separate, detailed report on civil liberties in every state over the spring. The report mentioned that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as other "authoritarian" states in the Middle East, ignore criticism concerning violations of the rights of citizens seeking to enhance freedoms. The year 2009 saw a further decline in freedoms for the fourth year in a row, the report said. Director of the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies Bahei el-Din Hassan said that the grim picture painted by Freedom House isn't surprising to the ordinary Egyptian or the intellectual elite. The sectarian incidents of Naga Hammadi could have earned Egypt even lower scores, but the report covers the year 2009 only, Hassan added. The report points out that the coming two years might be even bleaker if Egyptians didn't stand in the face of the regime to change its current policies. Meanwhile, the US State Department expressed concerns over the status of human rights in Egypt, particularly incidents of torture, religious freedoms and the continuing implementation of the Emergency Law, announced Michael H. Posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in a press conference in Cairo on Thursday. Egypt is the second largest recipient of US foreign aid, after Israel, with an annual sum of roughly US$1.5 billion. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
