A group of international human rights organizations supported sending 278 European and American lawmakers earlier this week two messages to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, strongly condemning the situation of prisoners of conscience in Egypt, and expressing their growing concern about them.
The organizations said in a statement Al-Jazeera Net obtained a copy of, that 84 members of the European Parliament, 138 members of national parliaments from all over Europe, and 56 American lawmakers wrote to Sisi to urge him to stop what human rights organizations described as "unfair prison sentences" against rights defenders Human rights workers, journalists, lawyers, and activists in Egypt detained solely for exercising their legitimate rights.
The organizations signing the statement believe that this urgent step came at the appropriate time to shed light on the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt, and to call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all detainees for the mere peaceful exercise of their rights.
The organizations signatories to the statement are the Euro-Mediterranean Rights Network, the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, Amnesty International, Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture-France, the International Federation for Human Rights - within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, and the World Organization Against Torture - within the framework of The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, the Project on Democracy in the Middle East (POMED) and the Freedom Initiative.
Prisoners of humanity
"The time has come for the Egyptian authorities to guarantee the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and break the cycle of impunity for perpetrators of grave human rights violations," the organizations said in the statement.
She added, "At a time when health risks are exacerbated by the spread of the (Covid-19) epidemic, lawmakers called for giving priority to prisoners' human rights."
She said that the two letters published in the United States and Europe referred to "similar calls issued this year by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN experts in the field of human rights, and international health bodies, showing an increasing clear frustration about the reality of human rights in Egypt."
The two messages come amid the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in Egypt, a few weeks after the Egyptian authorities once again resorted to the illegal use of force, mass arrests, and censorship to suppress protests against the deteriorating economic situation, as the Egyptian government exploits the "Covid-19" epidemic to impose more Restrictions on basic freedoms, and restrictions on any criticism of the way it handles the health crisis, according to a statement by human rights organizations.
The statement called for the release of Egyptian citizens who were forcibly disappeared or detained for expressing their views peacefully (Reuters)
Enforced disappearance
In their statement, international human rights organizations said that some prisoners of conscience whose names were mentioned in the lawmakers' letter, including Rami Shaath and Ziad Al-Alimi, spent more than a year in pretrial detention because of their peaceful activism, while human rights lawyers such as Mohamed Al-Baqir and Mahienour Al-Masry, who were arrested Their names were also mentioned in the two letters, due to their defense before the courts of Egyptian citizens who were forcibly disappeared or detained for expressing their views peacefully, according to the statement.
The organizations added that this comes in addition to "hundreds of citizens deprived of their right to choose a lawyer to represent them," as "Esraa Abdel Fattah, Slafa Magdy, Hussam Al-Sayyad and Mahmoud Hussein were arrested because of their work, which deprived citizens of the right to access information."
The lawmakers who signed the two letters also referred - according to the rights organizations' statement - to the issue of detained researchers and academics, including Patrick Zaki and Ibrahim Ezz El-Din, as an indication that the repression did not exclude freedom of thought.
56 Democrats signed the letter, including independent Senator Bernie Sanders (center) (Reuters)
Fears of the spread of Corona
An American newspaper reported that lawmakers from the Democratic Party had sent a letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, calling for the release of detainees who said they had been unfairly imprisoned.
The "Washington Post" newspaper reported that lawmakers included in their letter details of detainees who said they were in prison for reasons they described as "unfair", expressing their concerns about the spread of the new Corona virus "Covid-19" in Egyptian prisons.
Lawmakers warned that Democrats would not tolerate human rights violations if Joe Biden won the presidency, and the letter spoke of more than 20 detainees - including activists, lawyers, political opponents and journalists - that it said were unfairly imprisoned for exercising their basic rights.
The list included the name of a fellow journalist on the island, Mahmoud Hussein, who has been detained in Egypt for about 4 years (Al-Jazeera)
The list included the name of a fellow journalist on the island, Mahmoud Hussein, who has been detained in Egypt for about 4 years, in addition to the politicians Hazem Hosni, Khaled Daoud, the socialist activist Haytham Mohamadeen, the human rights activist Mahienour Al-Masry, the political activist Rami Shaath, who has been in custody for more than a year, and the Coptic activist Rami Kamal .
Lawmakers said that a number of American citizens were imprisoned in Egypt, including the brother of Pennsylvania teacher Reem Muhammad al-Desouki, calling for his release.