The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27, scheduled to take place in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh from November 6 to 18 2022, is a blatant example of the Egyptian regime’s exploitation of international events and turning them into mere public relations and propaganda to cover up its human rights violations.
The undersigned organizations affirm the importance of the Summit and its aspirations for the benefit of humanity, by discussing climate change and its effects on the planet, but this does not change the gravity of Egypt’s systematic malpractices of human rights at all levels and in various frameworks.
The Egyptian authorities are exerting immense efforts to paint a fraudulent image of improving the human rights situation by issuing the human rights strategy, the recent burlesque national dialogue and the presidential pardon of prisoners committee. While these steps give the illusion of a breakthrough, they are in fact practicing the opposite conduct. Number of political prisoners is growing, new prisons are constructed every day and filled with tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience, human rights defenders and environmentalists, deprived of their basic rights and suffering from severe imprisonment conditions, causing the death of 1,441 detainees from July 2013 to the time of writing this statement. The country is also witnessing a complete blockage in political participation. Civil and economic statuses are at their lowest.
That is why we call on the participants in the United Nations Climate Summit (COP27) to take advantage of this opportunity to defend the Egyptian human rights situation, in addition to the important files of the conference, to urge Egyptian authorities to:
- Announce a moratorium on the execution of death penalty sentences, especially on the ones that have completed all levels of litigation and become enforceable against 95 political prisoners.
- Immediately release all political prisoners, and stop the arbitrary and random arrests practiced by the Egyptian authorities against their opponents.
- Suspension of exceptional and military trials and the consequent annulment of their sentences, particularly death sentences.
- Stop using pretrial detention as a tool to penalize political opponents, and end the phenomenon of recycling defendants in endless cases.
- Cease the systematic practice of enforced disappearances and reveal the whereabouts and fate of the forcibly disappeared, including those who have died such as Former parliamentarian Mostafa Alnajar.
- Putting an end to the systematic torture practices in detention centres, and implementing prison regulations regarding the right to visit, medical care, sports, and communication with the outside world.
- Erase unlawful and unconstitutional restrictions on freedom of assembly, expression, and media.
- Amending the legislation on freedom of peaceful assembly to comply with Egypt’s international obligations in this area, and allow for the full exercise of freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression during and after the climate conference.
Signatories:
1- Andalus Institute For Tolerance and Anti-violence Studies ( AITAS)
2- Arab foundation for Civil society and human rights.
3- Egyptian Democratic Institute ( EDI)
4- Humena for human rights and civic participation.
5- Egyptian Human Rights Forum ( EHRF).
6- Haqohm
7- Arab association for penal reform.
8- Promising voices for human rights and participatory development.
