Rights groups say UN should act if Egypt doesn’t

The United Nations' Human Rights Council should investigate rights violations in Egypt if the government does not carry out credible investigations, according to Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“If Egypt doesn’t carry out credible investigations into the illegal killings and torture, the mechanisms of the UN Human Rights Council should be used to pursue an international investigation,” Joe Stork said Tuesday in a joint press release by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. 

The statement said that Egypt's human rights climate is at its lowest point in decades, and addressing the country’s “dismal” record should be a “top priority” for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he takes office. 

Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, deputy MENA director for Amnesty International, said that authorities spent the last year repressing rights rather than “addressing the urgent need for reform.”

The statement said that extensive restrictions on freedom of association, expression and assembly were reversing gains made since the mass uprising that broke out on January 25, 2011 and resulted in the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled the country for 30 years. The statement also described impunity as “rampant.”

On Monday an already modest 10-year sentence, given to a senior police officer for the deaths of 37 men, was annulled. The men suffocated to death after tear gas was fired into the prison transport vehicle that they had been stuffed in without food or drink for hours.

The statement also called for the release of those imprisoned for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly and the repeal of the 2013 public assembly law, which bans gatherings of 10 or more people without prior permission from the Ministry of Interior.

The online database Wikithawra issued a report last week that said 41,163 have been detained or prosecuted since former President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in July last year. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights said that over 41,000 have faced arrests or charges since Morsi’s ouster. 

The statement also chronicled notable instances of unlawful killing by security forces, including outside the Republican Guards headquarters last July and the violent dispersals of the Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda Square sit-ins last August, as well as violence following marches on October 6th and the anniversary of the January 2011 uprising.