Egypt’s abuses, crackdown on ‘critics’ draw world attention
Imprisoned author-scribe Naji to receive PEN award
CAIRO, April 1, (AP): Nearly three years into a crackdown overseen by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, allegations of human rights abuses including killings, torture and secret detentions are starting to bring an international backlash from the Egyptian leader’s allies.
In the past month, Egypt was rebuked over its human rights record by US Secretary of State John Kerry, the European Union’s foreign affairs arm, the
European Parliament, the UN Council for Human Rights as well as several Western European nations, including key trade partner and EU heavyweight Germany.
The case of an Italian student kidnapped and tortured to death in Cairo has poisoned Egypt’s long close ties with Italy, amid suspicions that it was carried out by members of the security agencies. Egypt denies police were involved and last week announced that a criminal gang was behind the killing of Giulio Regeni — a claim that was derided in Italy.
Also raising alarm was Egypt’s reopening earlier this month of a criminal investigation into a number of non-governmental organizations — including rights groups — on suspicion of illegally taking foreign funds and aiming to “harm national security.” The two cases came under heavy criticism at a session of the UN Human Rights council last week, along with reports of torture and forced disappearances.
“This looks like a clampdown on sections of Egyptian civil society and it must stop,” the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Raad Al-Hassan said of the NGO case. Kerry raised concern over “deterioration” in Egypt’s rights situation and “a wider backdrop of arrests and intimidation of political opposition, journalists, civil society activists and cultural figures.”
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, replied that Cairo rejects international “tutelage” on human rights. He said Egypt is “keen to implement and put into action the constitution, which stipulates respect for and commitment to human rights.”
Shoukry and Kerry met Wednesday in Washington on the sidelines of a nuclear security conference in talks that focused on the conflicts on Syria and Yemen — though the State Department said Kerry underlined the need for Egypt to allow rights NGOs to operate freely.
Egypt often counters that it is fighting against Islamic militancy in the form of an insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers the past three years. Since coming to office in 2014, el-Sisi has presented himself as at the forefront of the battle against Islamic militants, calling for reforms to encourage moderate Islam. He has become a close ally of European states in fighting the Islamic State group, particularly in Libya.
Meanwhile, an imprisoned Egyptian author and journalist is being given the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, presented by PEN America.
Ahmed Naji received a twoyear sentence in February for “destroying social values,” an allegation tied to the content of his novel “The Use of Life.”
The 30-year-old Naji has written three books and is a contributor to the state-owned Akhbar al-Adab literary magazine, among other publications.
His trial came after Akhbar al-Adab released an excerpt in 2014 from “The Use of Life” that contained explicit sex acts and references to habitual drug use. The complaint against Naji originated when a reader of Akhbar al-Adab alleged that the excerpt made him physically ill.