Egypt must stop using anti-terrorism laws to muzzle critics and even keep them in pre-trial detention indefinitely, dozens of countries told the UN on Friday.
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In a rare oral rebuke of Egypt at the United Nations Human Rights Council, 31 countries issued a joint statement voicing alarm at restrictions on free expression and assembly in the country suffered by political opponents, right defenders and journalists.
The group of mainly European countries, but also including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, pointed to “the constrained space for civil society and political opposition”.
They expressed particular concern at “the application of terrorism legislation against peaceful critics.”
“We are deeply concerned about the application of terrorism legislation against human rights activists, LGBTI persons, journalists, politicians and lawyers,” said Kirsti Kauppi, Finland’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, reading the joint statement via video message.
The statement mentioned in particular the case of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a leading rights group that saw staff members detained last year and slapped with terror charges after a meeting with foreign ambassadors.
They were freed following a global outcry.
The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former general who led the 2013 overthrow of Islamist former president Mohamed Morsi, has overseen a widespread and ongoing crackdown aimed at quashing dissent.
An estimated 60,000 political prisoners are being held in Egyptian jails, according to rights groups, and the country is considered the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, behind China and Turkey.
– ‘Clear message’ –
Rights groups welcomed Friday’s statement — which marked the first joint intervention before the rights council targeting Egypt since 2014 — but said it was long overdue.
The declaration “ends years of a lack of collective action at the UN Human Rights…
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