Some record numbers of Egypt’s human rights violations
Introduction
Egyptian officials of different levels up to the top of the executive hierarchy, as well as pro-regime media, keep talking about the unprecedented achievements that came true in various fields in the last few years. Said achievements are hard to come up with a proof for any of them, or at least a proof of their positive impact on the livelihood or the freedoms of ordinary citizens.
But the fact is that there are achievements that the ruling regime has made true in the period since the ousting of former president Dr. Mohamed Morsi in mid-2013, up till now. These are truly unprecedented perhaps throughout Egypt’s modern history or at least in the period from the birth of July 1952 regime till the advent of the July 2013 one. But they are not of the type that the regime or its supporters like to speak of, as they were all accomplished in the field of human rights violations. Such violations are unprecedented in rate, severity, and continuity throughout the last years, thus calling on international rights organizations to recognize the fact that Egypt is going through the darkest periods of its contemporary history when it comes to the prevalence of human rights violations.
Some of the violations that this paper focuses on are new to Egypt, but some of them are old, though they had gone through an unprecedented escalation.
The current paper tries to shed light on examples of the most atrocious human rights violations that were committed by the Egyptian authorities in the period starting in mid-2013 up to the present. The paper does not expand on the details of each violation or its background as these were all documented before in rights groups and media reports throughout the last years, it rather aims at drawing an outline of an abstract but meaningful picture of the current reality of human rights in Egypt in the last period through the most conspicuous figures and precedents of these rights violations.
- Raba’a massacre, a record of killing hours
Rab’a massacre was undoubtedly the real birth moment of the current era, which might have been responsible for most of its characterizing features, and represented the point of no return on the course that Egypt has followed up till today and seems to be following for unforeseeable time in the future. On the other hand, the authorities have made a new record for the largest number of casualties of unlawful killings carried out by law enforcing forces in a single incident, and in one location, in Egypt’s modern history, thus surpassing the last record of the ‘Friday of Anger’, on Jan28 2011, when 551 Egyptian citizens were killed by police forces on a single day.
On August 14th, 2013, security forces supported by the army, has dispersed two sit-ins of the former president Mohamed Morsi supporters after his removal. These forces have used unnecessary excessive force for the dispersal procedure, and there is ample evidence of intentionally causing the largest possible number of casualties. Rights organizations were not able to document the exact number of this massacre due to the hostility of the new authorities toward these organizations. Additionally, the authorities were keen on covering up the record number of casualties on this day, thus estimated numbers ranged between a low in hundreds, that was announced by sources belonging or close to authorities and a high in thousands announced by the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated sources. We will, however, use the least of the two figures, as though it is the least, it is still a record number of killings committed in only 12 hours. This figure announced by the National Council for Human Rights and is still published in its web site document the demise of (632) Egyptian citizens, becoming the first and the highest number of killings in a single day.
- The death penalty, not one figure but two
While death penalty, in itself, is considered a violation of the right to life, and rights groups around the world work for its abolition; a step that many countries have already taken, it becomes nothing short of murder by the law when trials leading to it lack fair trials standards.
Egypt has witnessed in the period since mid-2013 up till today an unprecedented expansion in issuing death penalties whether by civil or military courts.
We are here most concerned with the record set by the 7th division of Menia criminal court, presided by judge Said Youssif, as it referred, on April 28th, 2014, 683 persons to the Mufti (a mandatory, though mostly nominal, a step before issuing a death penalty sentence) in a single stroke. The defendants were accused of participating in assaulting and burning down the police station at Adwa in Menia, and the murder of one police officer. On the same day, the same court sentenced 37 persons to death, out of 529 persons, who were sentenced to death in a previous trial, while downgrading the rest of the sentences to life in prison. The defendants were accused of participating in violent incidents in Menia.
It should be mentioned that according to a report by Amnesty International, Egypt was the first in MENA in 2018 as per the total number of people who were sentenced to death either finally or with a chance of sentence reversal in a new trial. The number of these was 717 persons.
- Number of political prisoners
There has been no time since the Monarchy era when Egyptian incarceration places, formal and known, or informal and secretive, and legal or illegal, had no detainees or prisoners due to political dissent. Their numbers have increased or decreased from time to time. But the current era stands out in this field to the extent that Egyptian prisons were so overcrowded that an unprecedented number of new prisons were needed to house new prisoners.
It is not only rights organizations that have difficulties in having accurate numbers of detainees, people on pre-trial detention, and prisoners, but we think that the ministry of interior itself faces the same difficulty, due to the increasing number of cases of arrest and incarceration, whether legal or illegal day after day, and throughout the many cities and towns of Egypt, while only a meager number of people get released due to doing their sentences, pending trials, or by presidential pardon.
Up till the end of 2016, the rights groups’ estimations of the number of political prisoners were in the vicinity of 60 thousand prisoners. With the continual increase of the number of detainees throughout the following years, especially the thousands detained after September 2019, ANHRI believes that the number of political prisoners is more likely to be around 65 thousand prisoners.
- Number of people on pre-trial detention
A huge number ranging from 25 to 30 thousand persons on pre-trial detention in Egypt according to the head of the human rights committee in parliament. It is also a record number that as far as ANHRI knows haven’t been achieved by any previous ruler of Egypt,
- Extended unlawful incarceration on pre-trial detention
Five years and 26 days, this is how long Mahmoud Abu Zaid aka Shawkan, has spent in jail on pre-trial detention before being sentenced to five years in prison within the case of Rab’a dispersal. This means that Shawkan has spent on pre-trial detention 25 days more than the time he was sentenced to, regardless of how fair the trial was.
ٍShawkan was among 215 persons incarcerated on pre-trial detention in this case and who were sentenced to the same number of years, so their incarceration period has exceeded their penalty time by around a month, as they were arrested on August 14th, 2013, and handed their sentences on September 8th, 2018.
Another glaring record number:
On October 21st, 2015 the journalist and civil society activist Hisham Ja’far was arrested on allegations of joining a prohibited, illegally established organization. He was inhumanly incarcerated on pre-trial detention for 42 months, where his health was severely damaged as he was denied any healthcare. Eventually, he was released on March 27th, 2019, i.e. he spent more than 3 years on pre-trial detention, without a trial, then he went out with damaged health due to being punished by on pre-trial detention detention.
- Prisoners of media and journalism
The referral to trial of the head of journalists syndicate Yahia Qallash, and two members of the syndicate’s council, Gamal Abdel Rahim, secretary-general, and Khalid El-Balshy, deputy, on allegations of harboring fugitives. They were sentenced, on November 19th, 2016, to two years in prison and a fine of 10 thousand EGP for suspending sentence execution.
This was only the tip of the iceberg that represents the number of journalists and media workers imprisoned. The head of the syndicate and the two council members were not the first or the last among journalists to be legally pursued. The fact is that imprisoning journalists was one of the areas where the current regime is distinguished when compared with previous ones. The estimated number of incarcerated journalists is controversial, but as per ANHRI estimates it stands at 34 journalists. This doesn’t put Egypt on top of the journalism enemies list, but makes it the first in the Arab world, and sets the record for the number of journalists incarcerated at any time throughout the Egyptian history. It also makes Egypt the third on the worst list after China, and Turkey.
- Blocking websites and smothering internet freedom
One more achievement for the current regime concerning internet freedom is the unprecedented number of websites blocked by Egyptian authorities. The number during the last two years is estimated to have grown from 21 journalistic and news sites blocked on May 24th, 2017, to 513 various sites before last September. After the protests of September 20th there were added more sites among them were the BBC site, and Al-Hura channel owned by the US government. Striving to block some particular websites by any means, the Egyptian authorities caused thousands of sites to be blocked in Egypt due to blocking whole domains to block a single site that uses them. For example, the pursuit of Egyptian authorities of the ‘Battel’ (an anti-presidential elections campaign) last year led to the blockage of 34 thousand sites that use the same domain addresses. Similar practices prevented linking to sites through Google search service for some time. Authorities endeavor to smother Facebook traffic after September 20th protest caused Messenger service to be practically paralyzed.
Conclusion
Above mentioned examples of record numbers and first of their kinds precedents, that were achieved by the July 2013 regime, put it at the forefront unchallenged in comparison with all the regimes that ruled Egypt in contemporary history, but only in the area of human rights violations. These examples range from violating the rights to life by the expansion of the death penalty, to severely limiting the right to free expression in its different forms, including the right to protest and the freedom of press, media and the internet. It is possible to add other violations of which the current regime stands out in comparison with previous ones, like the establishment of tens of GONGOS, and using them for sabotaging independent human rights movement. There can also be added different forms of violations in literature, cinema and other fields of creativity, that can only be compared to the darkest periods of Egypt’s contemporary history. In conclusion, the current regime smothers Egypt with a strangling reality that almost paralyzes society’s life in different aspects through this unprecedented number of violations of basic rights. A state of affairs that can’t be sustained without reaching a point of explosion with dire consequences.
The Egyptian authorities have to realize that going on with violating their citizens’ rights with such unprecedented rates amounts to risking the destiny of the same state they claim to seek to protect, as it renders such state’s institutions vulnerable, and over-burdens law enforcement institutions by themselves, undermining their ability to carry out their real responsibilities, leasing to more suffering on the part of the citizens already having a hard time dealing with difficult economic conditions. The Egyptian authorities should urgently modify their course of action towards human rights, and remedy their severely undermined conditions to realize civil peace and national security in their true meaning, and hence preserve the safety of the state itself.
