Detainees Held for More Than 90 Days, Allegedly Tortured
Egypt should immediately release six men who have been detained for more than 90 days without charge since their arrests following a workers strike and street protests in Mahalla al-Kobra in April, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called on authorities to suspend the prosecution of 49 others by a security court where procedures violate fair trial rights and to investigate allegations that some of the men were tortured....
from Afriquenligne Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt - Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak has unveiled a three-point plan, urging Africa to invest in women empowerment through education, equal job opportunities and policies to boost income generation for women.In her keynote address at a conference here Sunday to track the achievements made in the fight for better economic opportunities for the African women, Mubarak said the gender debate should not be separated from social development."Any effective gender strategy must address the root causes of disparities and map out a national master plan with defined budgetary resources that target the special needs of poor women...you may ask why the poor?"The reason is, it is they who carry the disproportionate burden of the gender inequality," she told...
Judges Ruled Organization’s Closure Contrary to ‘Reality and Law’
Egyptian authorities should immediately remove all restrictions against a labor organization and comply with a court order to legally recognize the workers’ rights group, Human Rights Watch said today....
Deported Men and Boys May Face Persecution in Sudan
Egyptian authorities should investigate the forced return to Sudan of at least 11 Sudanese who were officially recognized as refugees and asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said today. The forcible return (refoulement) of people to a country where they have a well-founded fear of persecution constitutes a breach of Egypt’s basic obligation under international refugee law....
Five Convictions in Fear-Driven Crackdown a Blow to Health and Justice
A Cairo appeals court’s decision to uphold the sentences imposed on five men jailed in a crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS underscores the Egyptian government’s dangerous indifference to public health and justice, Human Rights Watch said today. The May 28 ruling upheld the maximum three-year prison terms for each of the five, following a months-long campaign targeting men with HIV/AIDS. A total of nine men have been sentenced to prison so far....
Repressive Law Renewed in Place of Promised Reforms
The Egyptian government’s abrupt extension by two years of the country’s decades-old state of emergency shows contempt for the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said today. Parliament rushed through the extension on May 26 with little debate and despite vociferous objections from the opposition and rights groups....
CNC Linked to Broadcast of Anti-Government Demonstrations
Egyptian authorities have enforced media licensing laws to punish a company associated with broadcasting information critical of the government, Human Rights Watch said today....
from Monsters and Critics At least 19.6 per cent of Egypt's 75 million citizens live below the poverty line, while 14.7 per cent of children do not go to school, said the United Nation's Human Development Report.The annual UN Human Development Report 2008, which was issued on Tuesday, assessed Egypt's social, economic, health and educational status.One of every five Egyptians lives below the poverty line, although the poverty rate decreased by 1 per cent during 1990 and 2005.However, poverty rates are widely expected to increase in Cairo from 4.6 per cent in 2005 to 7.6 per cent in 2015, the report said.As for education, the report said that 69.5 per cent of the population are illiterate, mostly women. Some 14.7 per cent of children do not go to school while university graduates account...
Authorities Use Intimidation, Violence to Suppress Online Advocacy
Egyptian authorities should immediately investigate and prosecute those security officials responsible for beating Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, Human Rights Watch said today. Maher, a 27-year-old civil engineer, used the social-networking site Facebook to support calls for a general strike on May 4, 2008, President Hosni Mubarak’s 80th birthday....
from USA Today By David J. Lynch, USA TODAYCAIRO — Well before 8 o'clock on a late April morning, a line of about 30 eager customers forms at a modest bakery in this working-class neighborhood. With a global food crisis roiling countries from Asia to the edge of Europe, at least 11 people have been killed recently in such lines here, struggling to get their daily bread.But today, the queue melts away within moments. Veiled women and men in worn shirts approach a small wooden shack at the end of a narrow alley, hand over the equivalent of a few cents and leave holding a plastic bag filled with nine flat loaves of bread. Over the next half-hour, until the bakery runs out of its only product, the line waxes and wanes.There's no panic, no desperate scrambling for sustenance — a...
Ruling Shows Government Contempt for Democratic Rights
A military tribunal’s conviction of 25 leading members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood demonstrates the Egyptian government’s continued determination to crush any organized political opposition, Human Rights Watch said today....
Security Forces Arrest Pro-Democracy Movement Leader
Egypt should conduct an impartial investigation into the police use of force against protestors in the industrial city of Mahalla al-Kobra, Human Rights Watch said today. Reports suggest police may have used unnecessary lethal and excessive force in responding to widespread, sometimes violent demonstrations on April 6-7, 2008....
from The Daily StarAsma Rushdi must wake up at dawn each day to queue up for the bread ration that will feed her family of eight, as Egypt struggles to cope with shortages that threaten a major political crisis. "I've been here since six this morning, it is now nine o'clock and still no bread," Rushdi shouts in front of a tiny state-owned bakery in the overcrowded and impoverished area of Bulaq Dakrur in Cairo.She is only allowed to spend 1 Egyptian pound ($0.18) that will get her 20 pieces of the subsidized flat round bread - the staple of the Egyptian diet.For Asma, who has to feed her family, including four children and two in-laws, from her husband's meager monthly salary of just 200 pounds, "bread is everything."Egypt is in the grip of a serious bread crisis brought on by a...
Against the backdrop of the upcoming local elections on April 8 and the arrest of over 300 members of the country’s biggest opposition group, Egypt is at a critical juncture along its path towards political and economic development with contradictions that are pulling this most populous country in the region in critically opposite directions. With 40 percent of its population living below the poverty line, the Egyptian economy is witnessing consistent growth and is attracting billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. This remarkable dichotomy is dangerously pushing the country along a perilous tight rope between either becoming the success story of economic reform in the region or driving the country into failure and instability.
At a time when the global economy is teetering...
Doctors Helping Police Denounced for Breaching Medical Ethics, Human Rights
As five more men face trial in Cairo on April 9 in a widening and dangerous police crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS, 117 organizations worldwide working in the fields of health and human rights condemned the crackdown and the participation of medical personnel....
Mass Arrests Include Would-Be Candidates; Military Court Delays Verdict
The Egyptian government’s continuing mass round-up of opposition activists and would-be candidates puts the legitimacy of upcoming local and municipal council elections in serious doubt, Human Rights Watch said today....
In the industrialized nations of the north, it is easy to take for granted the progress made in the control of the HIV virus, and some of the hard-fought, positive changes in the social, ethical and legal treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS. In the United States, regimes of increasingly effective drugs have been developed to control the virus and transform HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease; legal protections specific to persons with HIV/AIDS have been bolstered; social stigma, while by no means absent, has had some of its sharper corners blunted by therapeutic advances and improved public understanding of the modes of HIV transmission. The fact that this is not the case globally was driven home by a recent report by Human Rights Watch. In Egypt, an HIV positive...
Persecuting People Living With HIV/AIDS Feeds the Epidemic
The Egyptian government’s new indictments against several men arrested apparently on suspicion of having HIV violate their basic rights and deeply undermine Egypt’s fight against HIV/AIDS, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today....
The NPR ran a very interesting story today on the realities of doing business in Egypt from the perspective of several young entrepreneurs. NPR reporter visited Speed Send, a company co-founded by 33-year-old Ahmed El Sherif six years ago that sells office supplies online. When asked about the largest obstacles to starting his business, El Sherif named several problems common not just in Egypt, but many other developing countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA):
Scarcity of reliable market data that would help gauge the potential customer base, draft an accurate business plan, and conduct market research,
Difficulties in obtaining bank loans by a start-up; banks only lend to profitable businesses,
Lengthy procedures for registering a business; at the time...
from IRINCAIRO, 3 March 2008 (IRIN) - Nearly all Egyptians - 98 percent of the population - have access to piped water but only some have proper sanitation facilities. Not much attention has been paid to the effective and safe disposal of sewage, especially in rural areas, say specialists.In rural areas - deserts and agricultural areas alike - only 58 percent of inhabitants have access to any kind of sanitation, said Rania El-Essawi, water, environment and sanitation officer at the Cairo office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most rural sanitation is primitive, and does not involve a proper sewage system.Toilets generally have either one or two pits, with some kind of elementary filtration mechanism. They may or may not be regularly emptied, and they are not necessarily in...
How do you get the attention of politicians? Egypt’s small business federation simply whisked them away during their lunch break…
Traditionally, small businesses across Egypt received little attention from the government. Although market reforms began in the 1990s, commercial laws affecting small business remained antiquated or were geared toward big business. The prime minister saw no need for legislation fostering small business growth, and parliament never consulted small business owners about their needs.
When the Federation of Economic Development Associations (FEDA) decided it was time it got heard, it rented two buses and parked them outside the Parliament. As members of parliament exited their first session of the day, they were greeted by FEDA representatives who invited them...
Rights Violations Drive Those in Need Underground
Cairo police arrested four more men suspected of having HIV, signaling a wider crackdown that endangers public health and violates basic human rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today in a joint statement....
Last week I visited Egypt for the first time. As exciting as I found the ancient wonders to be, I discovered new sources of excitement in voluntary initiatives by business leaders to reshape the way economic policy gets made. Business leadership for change is flowing from different directions, particularly from two CIPE partner associations representing contrasting constituencies.
The Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJB) represents over 400 young managers and business owners. Many of them have international education and experience and are responsible for large companies. This elite, forward-thinking group has been on the cutting edge of promoting ethical business and public service. Since 2004, EJB has issued an annual National Business Agenda based on the CIPE model, which...
Government Should Protect Converts from Discrimination, Harassment
Today’s ruling by Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court allowing 12 Christian converts to Islam to “re-convert” back to Christianity is a welcomed rejection to the government’s policy of religious discrimination, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said today. The two organizations urged the government to take immediate steps to correct its systematic policy of forcing converts from Islam to accept a religious identity that was not their own in order to obtain essential identification documents....
HIV-Motivated Arrests and Convictions Threaten Justice and Public Health
A series of arrests in Cairo sparked by one man’s admission to police that he was HIV-positive endangers public health as well as human rights, Human Rights Watch said today....
Egypt Detains Democracy Activists While Rejecting EU Criticism of Rights Abuses
Egyptian security forces prevented demonstrators from holding a peaceful protest in Cairo’s Saida Zeinab Square on January 17, arbitrarily detaining 30 demonstrators, Human Rights Watch said today. The protest against cuts in government subsidies was scheduled to take place the day after a visit by US President George W. Bush, who praised Egypt’s “vibrant civil society.”...
Prosecution Decision to Close Inquiry Into December 2005 Killings Seriously Flawed
Five Egyptian and international human rights organizations today called on President Hosni Mubarak to authorize an independent judicial inquiry into the December 30, 2005 police assault on Sudanese protestors – refugees, asylum seekers and migrants – in Cairo that resulted in the deaths of 27 persons and injured scores more....
Counterterrorism Case Hinged on Abusive Methods
A high-profile terrorism case announced by the Egyptian authorities in 2006 was likely based on torture and false confessions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today....
Several recent reports review the situation of Iraqi refugees generally and in neighboring countries:
General: "Iraq: Growing Needs Amid Continuing Displacement," Forced Migration Review, no. 29 (Nov. 2007) [text]
Egypt: "Iraqi Refugees in Egypt," Forced Migration Review, no. 29 (Nov. 2007) [text]
Jordan: Study of Iraqis in Jordan (Fafo, Nov. 2007) [access]
Lebanon: Rot Here or Die There:...
End Discrimination, Harassment of Baha’is, Converts From Islam
Egypt should allow all citizens to use their actual religious identity when required to list religion on government documents, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said today. The government’s discriminatory practice of restricting identity to three religions, directed at Baha’is and preventing converts from Islam from listing their true belief, violate many rights and cause immense hardship....