CAIRO (MEMO) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticized the choice of Egypt as host of the next global climate summit in November 2022, warning that the Egyptian government would use the event to “whitewash its appalling record of human rights abuses”.
“Egypt is a glaringly poor choice to host COP27 and rewards the repressive rule of President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi despite his government’s appalling abuses,” said Joe Stork, HRW’s Middle East director.
“Countries participating in the COP27 should press Egypt to release the thousands of people jailed solely for exercising their right to free speech and peaceful assembly,” Stork added.
He also urged delegates planning to participate in the summit to call on Cairo to halt criminal proceedings against activists before indicating a commitment to next year’s summit.
The rights watchdog highlighted the case of Egyptian environmental activist, Ahmed Amasha, who has been detained since July 2020, as an example of Al-Sisi’s continued targeting of civilian activists.
It noted that Egypt’s choice of the remote coastal town of Sharm El-Sheikh to host the summit precludes the possibility of grassroots street demonstrations like those seen in Glasgow.
HRW added that the government tightly controls protests, using the 2013 anti-protest law, which bans any public assembly without Interior Ministry approval.
In another development, a coalition of leading human rights organizations have voiced serious concern about Egypt’s ongoing harassment and intimidation of the family of a U.S.-based activist.
The father of Mohamed Soltan, an Egyptian-American activist who filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian state for torture and other crimes against humanity, has been held in incommunicado detention since June 2020.
In a joint statement on Monday, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and 12 other rights groups said Salah Soltan’s arrest and treatment may amount to enforced disappearance and may amount to torture or other ill-treatment.
“Salah Soltan’s enforced disappearance, incommunicado detention, and mistreatment very much look like acts of reprisal aimed at inflicting pain on Mohamed Soltan for his human rights work abroad,” said HRW’s Stork.
“Those responsible for Soltan’s disappearance and ill-treatment in detention should be held to account.”
Mohamed Soltan, who spent 643 days in prison in Egypt after being arrested in July 2013, filed a lawsuit against former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi in a U.S. court last year.
He accused the former prime minister of direct responsibility for his treatment, which included being shot, beaten and tortured.