The number of the expatriate Egyptians is some 10-11 millions, of whom 950,000 in the US, Former Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Citizenship Committee Mohamed Dorghamy said. The committee has held meetings with the Egyptian community in the United States to listen to their complaints and suggestions within the framework of the state's plan to take care of its citizens abroad. "The Committee has allocated two meetings to hear complaints of the Egyptians living in the US capital. The meetings concentrated on obstacles the expatriates face such as the issuance of passports and IDs, as well as investment, treatment in airports and internal transactions that suffer from red tape."
Preparations are currently underway to appoint a lawyer in every Egyptian embassy to protect the rights of the Egyptian communities, Dorghamy said, stressing that Egypt does not abandon its citizens abroad even if they were illegal immigrants.
He called on the Egyptian expatriates to register their names in the Egyptian embassies and consulates to communicate with them and solve their problems.
Committees are being formed to go to the places where these communities live and officials will be sent from time to time to issue the IDs for the expatriates. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts the auspices of the Egyptian citizen abroad at its top of priorities, Dorghamy added. The citizenship committee, which was mandated by President Hosni Mubarak, is on a tour in the US for the first time in 27 years. The focus was previously on the Gulf States where a large number of the Egyptians live. The committee will travel to a number of US cities and then to Canada.
For his part, director of the Foreign Ministry's Human Rights Department Wael Abul Magd says the state's different bodies are currently considering granting the Egyptian expatriates the right to vote, noting that this will require some constitutional amendments. Egypt does not wait for any reports from abroad to take an action to improve its human rights record, Abul Magd said, pointing out that the Egyptian organizations monitor and document even more than what is done by foreign organizations such as Human Rights Watch, which does not concern us because we are responsible first and foremost before our citizens.
He does not deny that there are violations of human rights in Egypt, but there is steady improvement, as the state seriously considers all reports issued by the Egyptian organizations.
There are joint programs with the United Nations to train security agencies on human rights, he said.
