Ahead of a UN resolution to postpone it, irony at an anti-torture conference in Egypt

Mohamed Seif Eldin-Cairo

Egypt's choice to hold a regional conference on the definition and criminalization of torture has raised many questions about Cairo's choice despite its long record of human rights abuses, especially in the past six years, prompting social media activists to describe it as a black comedy.

The protest and cynicism seem to have succeeded this time. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced Tuesday afternoon the postponement of the regional conference on the criminalization of torture, which was scheduled to be held in Cairo on 4-5 September, in partnership with the National Council for Human Rights.

Since the announcement of the conference in Cairo, objections have escalated, with many saying that cooperation between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Egyptian authorities means continued international complicity over human rights violations in Egypt, while others saw the conference as a purely routine measure as Egypt is currently the president of the African Union.

Routine decision

Alaa Abdel-Monsef, director of the International Peace Organization for Human Rights, is biased towards the latter team. He believes that the conference is a routine issue, as Egypt is the chairman of the African Union at its current session which started on February 9, adding that holding the conference in Egypt does not necessarily mean the recognition of the High Commission. That the human rights file in Egypt is going well.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, the Egyptian human rights expert suggested that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was the first to call for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the death of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, as well as its office in February, expressing concern about the trials he described as unfair, which led to the execution of 15. People in Egypt the same month.

On the other hand, and within the monitoring of Al Jazeera Net of the various reactions, the Director of the Shehab Center for Rights and Freedoms lawyer Khalaf Bayoumi believes that the decision to hold the conference in Egypt was a loss to the international mechanism, which has already issued a decision that considers torture in Egypt systematically, he explained to the island Net.

Negative message

For his part, the director of the "Comity for Justice" and Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Mufreh, that the cooperation between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Egyptian government represented in the National Council for Human Rights, does not agree with the decline of the human rights situation in Egypt.

He explained in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, that the conference comes within the framework of the arrangements and preparations made by the relevant bodies in Egypt to prepare its human rights file, to be submitted for the periodic review of human rights at the United Nations in November.

Mufreh stressed that the High Commissioner's sponsorship of such a conference gives a very negative message to the independent Egyptian human rights community in Egypt and abroad, which is systematically curtailed, repressed and targeted by the Egyptian regime.

Meanwhile, the deputy of the Human Rights Committee in the Egyptian Shura Council, Ezzedine El-Koumi, considered that the conference of the High Commissioner in Egypt comes within the international chain of collusion to prevent the initiation of criminal lawsuits against those who committed what he described as massacres against the people of Egypt, despite the existence of documents and evidence proving their involvement.

Al-Koumi explained in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that such conferences legitimize the crimes practiced by the Egyptian regime on a daily basis, such as enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture.

A record of violations
Since the overthrow of the late President Mohamed Morsi in the summer of 2013, and the human rights file in Egypt is a slope, according to the description of human rights.

Earlier this month, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (Civil Society) issued a report entitled "The Nightmare of Torture in Egypt: Legal and Judicial Obstacles to Justice for Torture Victims".

86 cases of torture in national security and detention facilities between June 2017 and June 2018.

The abuses have not only stopped torture inside detention centers, but also reached extrajudicial killings. July 2018.

In Sinai, 4010 civilians were killed, including 3,709 people the army said were killed as a result of security confrontations, and the rest were killed indiscriminately without opening an investigation into one incident.

It is killing outside the law to kill by medical negligence in prisons, where he died since the beginning of this year about 25 detainees inside their jail, according to the monitoring of Al Jazeera Net reporter.

In January, Adalah's Center for Rights and Freedoms (Civil Society) released a report entitled "How to Treat a Prisoner to Death," which noted that the number of medical neglect in prisons between 2016 and 2018 amounted to about 819.

black comedy

Before the news broke that the conference had been postponed, social media activists considered the organization in Egypt a kind of "black comedy", in light of the detainees and prisoners of conscience in the country.