The arrest of human rights defenders in Egypt ignites platforms of communication and global condemnation

The eighth newsletter - Nasharkom (21/11/2020) monitored the global and Arab interaction with what was described as monitoring the Egyptian system of jurists, and the demands of the Egyptian authorities to quickly release the activists and ensure that human rights institutions operate independently.

The executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Jasser Abdel Razek, was the third official to be arrested after Karim Anara, director of the criminal justice unit, in addition to the organization’s administrative director, Mohamed Bashir.

The initiative said that its members were asked during the investigation about the visit of a number of ambassadors accredited to Egypt to its headquarters in Cairo earlier this month, to hold a meeting that discussed ways to support the human rights situation in Egypt.

Politicians and international organizations condemned the arrest of the members of the organization, as Deputy Spokesman Kill Brown expressed grave concern about the arrest of a third employee of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and Coptic activist Rami Kamel, and urged the Egyptian government to release these detainees and respect basic freedoms of expression and association.

Chris Murphy, a member of the US Senate for the Democratic Party, called on the Egyptian authorities to immediately release members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and said that they had been arrested for nothing except for their meeting with European diplomats - apparently -. Murphy described what happened as "the latest episode of repression overpowered" Political freedom in Egypt. "

For his part, the head of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Jim Risch, said - in a tweet - "Reports of Egyptian security forces arresting 3 EIPR employees are disturbing, and he called for their immediate release."

European Commission spokesman for Foreign Affairs Peter Stano called on Egypt to respect human rights. He wrote, “The transfer of the European Union to Cairo has great concerns regarding the arrest of members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which provides important services to the people of Egypt by promoting their rights and freedoms, and working with complete transparency. Essential to the relations between the European Union and Egypt. "

As for human rights defender Osama Rushdie, he stressed that the Egyptian authorities will not heed the global statements of condemnation unless they follow measures against the authorities. He said, “The retaliatory campaign against EIPR officials is directed against the European Union, whose ambassadors visited the EIPR office on November 3. The foreign ministers of France, Britain and Italy, and their concerns and denunciations of the United Nations, will not be heard unless they are accompanied by real measures. "

The researcher, Muhanna Al-Hubail, linked the global movement rejecting the arrest of jurists and the imminent change of the American administration. He wrote, "The American and European response movement to reject the recent wave of arrests of human rights defenders in Egypt will have greater resonance in the coming period, and Biden's approach to assuming the responsibilities of the presidency will reveal the credibility of his statements and his democratic supporters about the human rights file in Saudi Arabia." Egypt, despite the relative change in executive behavior, is effective. "

Egyptian politician Muhammad Mahsoub expressed his solidarity with the detainees, writing, “All solidarity with the detainees of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Meeting any politician or human rights activist with foreign ambassadors is not a crime, as they are ambassadors for the state, not the authority. The people see their property, the opponents are enemies, and the jurists are a danger, and foreign ambassadors are bound to tell it. "

Politician Tariq Al-Zomor attributed the anger at the arrest of the activists to the Egyptian authorities ’continuing practices in violating human rights. This time, or will the will of tyranny be broken and release immediately?