ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT: Generation of young activists imprisoned in ruthless bid to crush dissent

3 Jul 2015

[International Secretariat]

Region: ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT

Topic: Year of Rebellion Human rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Two years after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, mass protests have been replaced by mass arrests. By relentlessly targeting Egypt’s youth activists, the authorities are crushing an entire generation’s hopes for a brighter future.

After the 2011 uprising, Egypt’s youth were lauded as a beacon of hope by the country’s military leaders and its international partners alike. It was their idealism and commitment to calls for ‘bread, freedom and social justice’ that proved a crucial driving force for change. Yet, today, many of these young activists are languishing behind bars, providing every indication that Egypt has regressed into a state of all-out repression. The crackdown has seen more than 41,000 people arrested, charged or indicted with a criminal offence, or sentenced after unfair trials, according to the last available estimates by Egyptian human rights activists.

Those behind bars range from internationally lauded youth movement leaders, to human rights defenders, to children arrested for wearing T-shirts with anti-torture slogans.”

The Protest Law, passed in November 2013, enables the authorities to arrest and prosecute peaceful demonstrators on a whim, and criminalizes the very act of taking to the streets without prior authorization. It also grants the security forces free reign to use excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters.

A crackdown that began with the arrests of Mohamed Morsi and his supporters, including senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, in July 2013 has rapidly expanded to encompass the whole of Egypt’s political spectrum. Well-known youth bloggers, critics and human rights defenders have been imprisoned for defying Egypt’s draconian Protest Law, or other legislation that arbitrarily restricts the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

A new wave of arrests in mid-2015 saw at least 160 people detained in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance according to the Egyptian activist group Freedom For the Brave. The Muslim Brotherhood movement separately reported new arrests of its members.

The Egyptian authorities have often sought to justify their heavy handed tactics by saying they are maintaining stability and security. While some demonstrators have used violence during protests, the response of the security forces has routinely been disproportionate. Many of those detained have found themselves hauled before courts on trumped-up or politically motivated charges, or sentenced during mass trials in which hundreds have been convicted based on little or no evidence, or solely on the basis of testimonies from the security forces or investigations by National Security.
Others have been detained for prolonged periods without charge or trial.

Amnesty International is warning Egypt’s international partners not to sacrifice human rights in their talks with the authorities. The leaders of influential EU countries, including France, Italy and　Germany, have all sat down with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi while his administration has been putting thousands of its political opponents behind bars. And there is no indication that stopping gross human rights violations in Egypt was on the agenda during these meetings. The UK has also invited President al-Sisi for talks, with a spokesperson confirming the news just a day after a court sentenced ousted President Mohamed Morsi to death following an unfair trial.

The US government announced in March that it was lifting a freeze on arms transfers to Egypt and would also offer continued military and security assistance to the country’s army and security forces.

The gross hypocrisy of Egypt’s partners has been laid bare in a race for lucrative business deals, political influence and intelligence, as well as new sales and transfers of policing equipment that could facilitate human rights violations. World leaders are breaking the pledges they made to stand by Egypt’s young people when Mubarak fell in February 2011. Egypt is jailing peaceful activists while the international community looks the other away. There’s silence from states, silence from world leaders and silence in the UN Human Rights Council.”

The authorities have justified the crackdown by pointing to a rise in political violence. Egypt is facing attacks from armed groups, which the authorities have said have led to the deaths of hundreds of members of the security forces, particularly in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, as well as a number of civilians. Amnesty International unreservedly condemns attacks on civilians. However, the organization urges the Egyptian authorities not to use such threats as a pretext for trampling upon human rights.

30 June 2015
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE