Hossam Bahgat summoned to Supreme State Security Prosecution on Sunday

Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), has been summoned to appear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution on Sunday, January 19, EIPR said on Wednesday.

The text of the summons, which EIPR said was handed to Bahgat at his workplace, did not specify the nature of the charges against him nor the subject of the investigation.

Bahgat noted on Thursday this is the fourth time in the past four years that staff at EIPR, one of the leading legal advocacy organizations in the country, are summoned for criminal investigation.

EIPR lawyers were unable to obtain further information on the case from prosecuting authorities, the organization’s statement added.

But it appears to be “a sinister attempt” by authorities “to silence criticism and reporting on their dismal human rights record,” said Amnesty International researcher on Egypt, Mahmoud Shalaby, noting that the summons was delivered days after the Interior Ministry threatened legal action over a recent statement by EIPR criticizing the prolonged remand detention and dire prison conditions that led prisoners in the 10th of Ramadan City Correction and Rehabilitation Center to go on hunger strike.

On Monday, the Interior Ministry said that it would take legal measures against the publication of what it referred to as “allegations that aim to incite confusion” regarding a hunger strike by several detainees in a government rehabilitation center.

The day before, EIPR had described a hunger strike among detainees at Center 6 of the 10th of Ramadan prison facility in a statement in which it called on the public prosecutor to visit the detainees in person to examine their conditions and hear their complaints and investigate them.

The statement said prisoners were on strike in protest of the prolonged remand detention of several individuals at the facility and of the deterioration of humanitarian conditions at the prison. 

The Interior Ministry denied the veracity of the complaints, stressing that all correction and rehabilitation centers provide “all living and health facilities” and that full care is provided to detainees in accordance with the highest international human rights standards.

The summons is not the first leveled by authorities at Bahgat, who was only able to travel outside Egypt in recent months after eight years of a travel ban imposed on him in 2016 was finally lifted.

Bahgat, who previously worked as a journalist, has also faced investigation for stories he published with Mada Masr.

His colleagues at EIPR, Gasser Abdel Razek and Karim Ennarah, have also been subject to arrest and travel bans for their work in researching and publishing information about rights infractions perpetrated by Egyptian authorities.

While international actors have often criticized Egypt’s rights record in the past, the European Union recently signed off on a one billion euro payout to Egypt, citing evidence of credible steps taken to improve rights practices in the country. 

The United States, meanwhile, has withheld $95 million in its annual military aid budget to Egypt this year on the grounds that benchmarks regarding particular political prisoners were not met.