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Urgency resolution on Egypt: European Parliament takes a courageous stance

EuroMed Rights welcomes the European Parliament’s resolution passed this Thursday 13 December, which strongly condemns the continuous restrictions on fundamental democratic rights in Egypt.

Commenting on the resolution, EuroMed Rights’ President, Wadih Al-Asmar, said:

“We believe the European Parliament is sending a strong message of hope to the Egyptian citizens and especially to human rights defenders in the midst of an unprecedented human rights crisis in Egypt’s modern history. Indeed, the Egyptian government is clearly not respecting its international obligations and commitments, as serious and widespread human rights violations continue to happen in a context of almost total lack of accountability. Human rights defenders and activists in the country are targeted for speaking out against these abuses, facing arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, travel bans, asset freezes, closure of NGOs and intimidation. Over the last years, EuroMed Rights has been constantly denouncing this crackdown against civil society, and it strongly supports the European Parliament’s call on the Egyptian government to halt these reprisals and repeal the draconian NGO law.”

“The resolution also calls on the EU and its Member States to maintain a strong and unified position on human rights at the meeting of the EU-Egypt Association Council, scheduled for 20 December 2018. We thus ask the EU to be coherent and denounce clearly those human rights violations; further cooperation with Egypt should be conditioned on respect for human rights.”

EuroMed Rights salutes the resolution to urge the unconditional release of several detained human rights activists, notably naming Hanan Badr el-Din, Amal Fathy, Hoda Abdelmoneim, Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy, and Ezzat Ghoneim, as well as media workers Mahmoud ‘Shawkan’ Abu Zeid, Hisham Gaafar, Mohammed ‘Oxygen’ Ibrahim, Ismail Iskandarani, and Alaa Abdelfattah. We extend this call for lawyer Mohamed Ramadan and writer Ibrahim al-Husseini, who were arrested in Egypt in two separated cases a few days before the resolution was passed.

Visit EuroMed Rights’ web page on Egypt here.