Egypt's Terror Law Use against Critics Slammed at U.N.

Egypt must stop using anti-terrorism laws to muzzle critics and even keep them in pre-trial detention indefinitely, dozens of countries told the U.N. on Friday.

In a rare oral rebuke of Egypt at the United Nations Human Rights Council, 31 countries issued a joint statement voicing alarm at restrictions on free expression and assembly in the country suffered by political opponents, right defenders and journalists.

The group of mainly European countries, but also including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, pointed to "the constrained space for civil society and political opposition".

They expressed particular concern at "the application of terrorism legislation against peaceful critics."

"We are deeply concerned about the application of terrorism legislation against human rights activists, LGBTI persons, journalists, politicians and lawyers," said Kirsti Kauppi, Finland's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, reading the joint statement via video message.

The statement mentioned in particular the case of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a leading rights group that saw staff members detained last year and slapped with terror charges after a meeting with foreign ambassadors. 

They were freed following a global outcry.

The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former general who led the 2013 overthrow of Islamist former president Mohamed Morsi, has overseen a widespread and ongoing crackdown aimed at quashing dissent.

An estimated 60,000 political prisoners are being held in Egyptian jails, according to rights groups, and the country is considered the world's third worst jailer of journalists, behind China and Turkey.

- 'Clear message' -

Rights groups welcomed Friday's statement -- which marked the first joint intervention before the rights council targeting Egypt since 2014 -- but said it was long overdue.

The declaration "ends years of a lack of collective action at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Egypt, despite the sharply deteriorating human rights situation," Bahey Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said in a joint statement with nine other national and international rights groups.

Kevin Whelan, Amnesty International's representative to the UN in Geneva, agreed, saying the country statement should send "a clear message to the Egyptian authorities that the world will no longer turn a blind eye to their relentless campaign to crush peaceful dissent."

But Egypt cried foul, rejecting the accusations.

"The Egyptian foreign ministry totally rejects the (joint) statement which contains inaccurate information," the ministry said in a statement.

It also called on countries "to stop making accusations which only express political views based on baseless information."

- 'Release all journalists' -

Friday's statement demanded in particular that Egypt end the use of terrorism charges to hold human rights defenders and civil society activists in extended pre-trial detention.

And it highlighted a practice, known as "rotation", used to circumvent legal limits on how long people can be held in pre-trial detention by "adding detainees to new cases with similar charges".

"We also ask Egypt to cease the use of the terrorism entities list to punish individuals for exercising their right to freedom of expression," Kauppi said.

More broadly, the countries called on Egypt to "guarantee space for civil society... to work without fear of intimidation, harassment, arrest, detention or any other form of reprisal".

"That includes lifting travel bans and asset freezes against human rights defenders, including EIPR staff," Kauppi said.

The statement also highlighted Egypt's crackdown on journalists, urging the authorities to "lift restrictions on media and digital freedom," and to stop blocking independent news websites.

And it called for them to release all journalists who have been arrested in the course of practicing their profession.

On a more positive note, it said that a new NGO law passed in Egypt in 2019 created a legal framework that, if implemented correctly, would be more favorable for the operation of civil society organizations.

A Western diplomat who helped draft the statement said that pushing for the correct implementation of that law was a major reason for issuing the statement now.