Rights spats overshadow climate talks
Egypt hoped that hosting this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, would bring positive attention and prestige. But an outburst at a news conference has shown that the country is struggling to stage-manage the global event and keep the lid on domestic controversies.
Sanaa Seif – a sister of BritishEgyptian political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a monthslong hunger strike – had just finished speaking about her brother’s case in front of dozens of international journalists yesterday when Egyptian lawmaker Amr Darwish stood up in the audience to berate her. ‘‘You are here summoning foreign countries to pressure Egypt,’’ he said.
Darwish repeatedly interrupted Seif, shouting as UN security escorted him out of the building: ‘‘Don’t touch me! You are here in the Egyptian land.’’
Human rights advocates say the incident perfectly exemplified – to a crowd of foreign observers – a side of Egypt that officials have tried to conceal from COP27 delegates.
‘‘This kind of intimidation and harassment is the least we have to experience. The only reason we actually had the news conference at all is because it happened in the area under UN control,’’ said Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who was at the news conference.
Bahgat, who has repeatedly faced charges in Egypt, and was fined last year over a tweet, travelled to Sharm el-Sheikh with accreditation from a German NGO. He said every Egyptian human rights organisation that applied for accreditation through the government was denied, forcing local activists to go through foreign groups.
Amid complaints from COP delegates that certain websites are blocked in Egypt, including Human Rights Watch, the ban appeared to be lifted yesterday. WhatsApp calls, which normally are blocked in Egypt, also started to go through.
Activists have long raised concerns about tight security and a lack of transparency at climate conferences. In Glasgow last year, they criticised conference organisers for limiting observers’ access to negotiating rooms.
One civil society representative, who has been assisting fellow activists this year with security issues and other rights concerns, said the situation in Egypt was uniquely worrying. ‘‘This is the most repressive COP probably in the history of COP.’’
There have been relatively few demonstrations inside the conference venue. And outside the ‘‘Blue Zone’’ – the main conference area overseen by the UN – there have been none.
For attendees accustomed to seeing raucous demonstrations surrounding COP meetings, the silence in Sharm el-Sheikh is deeply unsettling.
‘‘There is such an intrinsic connection between human rights and climate justice,’’ said Jean Su, a board chair for Climate Action Network Interna
tional. ‘‘The credibility of COP27 and its outcomes will be at stake if Egypt fails to respond to the call for the release of Alaa and other prisoners of conscience.’’
At an event hosted in the conference’s German pavilion yesterday, half a dozen young protesters
rushed the stage, wearing white T-shirts that read ‘‘#FreeAlaa #FreeThemAll’’.
Wiktoria Jedroszkowiak, a 21-year-old activist from Warsaw, was among the protesters. She said she felt obligated to use her ‘‘privilege as an EU citizen’’ to call out human rights violations in a way Egyptian citizens could not do safely.
‘‘We cannot talk about climate justice without talking about freedom of speech and human rights,’’ Jedroszkowiak said.