Egypt

Repression in Egypt keeps getting worse and worse.  It has become so noticeable that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid of Jordan, actually spoke about it--something that doesn’t happen every day. Here is how his statement began: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the closure of hundreds of civil society organizations in Egypt and the prosecutions of numerous human rights defenders for their legitimate work since November 2014. “This looks like a clampdown on sections of Egyptian civil society and it must stop,” said Zeid. “NGOs who have played a valuable role in documenting violations and supporting victims will see their activities completely crippled if this continues. This will stifle the voices of those who advocate for victims.” I am a member of the non-partisan Working Group on Egypt, which has just written to President Obama  about the broader phenomenon of repression in Egypt. Our letter can be found here but I copy the text below. As we noted, "President al-Sisi’s campaign against civil society takes place against the backdrop of unprecedented abuses by Egyptian security forces, including extrajudicial killings, the detention of tens of thousands of political prisoners, the widespread documented use of torture, and the forced disappearances of hundreds of Egyptians. The killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose tortured body appeared on a roadside near Cairo a week after his abduction in late January, has come to international attention, but many Egyptians have shared his fate since President al-Sisi came to power." Egypt is an important country and it is faced with terrorist threats to the west, in the Western Desert and Libya, and in Sinai. There will be arguments that realpolitik demands that we back President Sisi and simply remain quiet about human rights violations. But I believe that’s exactly wrong. Realism demands that we speak out for two reasons. First, the people Sisi is repressing are especially the democrats, liberals, secular citizens, and moderates--the very base for future progress for the society. It is simply untrue that the repression is only targeting Muslim Brotherhood members, jihadis, extremists, and terrorists. Second, what Sisi is doing will not work. The combination of corruption, lack of economic progress, and repression means that Egypt will remain unstable. For example, Sisi has made no gains against jihadis in the Sinai, in part because of the government’s conduct there, and ISIS appears to be stronger there now than it was a couple of years ago. Filling the prisons with everyone who speaks out against repression or who criticizes the government will not stop ISIS. In essence the United States is back where we began, supporting a repressive regime in the supposed interest of stability. That’s what we did with Mubarak, for the most part, until almost the day he fell. The only differences are that Sisi is more repressive than Mubarak, and that because of ISIS the stakes are higher today. Thus our letter to the President. ================================================================ March 23, 2016 The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, We are writing to urge you to speak directly with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and to express both publicly and privately your objection to his accelerating crackdown on human rights, including recent moves to prosecute civil society organizations. You were correct to declare in September 2014 that “America’s support for civil society is a matter of national security,” and nowhere is that more true than in Egypt today. President al-Sisi’s campaign against civil society takes place against the backdrop of unprecedented abuses by Egyptian security forces, including extrajudicial killings, the detention of tens of thousands of political prisoners, the widespread documented use of torture, and the forced disappearances of hundreds of Egyptians. The killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose tortured body appeared on a roadside near Cairo a week after his abduction in late January, has come to international attention, but many Egyptians have shared his fate since President al-Sisi came to power. On March 24, an Egyptian court will hear a request to freeze the bank accounts and other assets of two internationally-respected human rights defenders, Hossam Bahgat and Gamal Eid, along with members of Eid’s family. Mr. Bahgat and Mr. Eid and other activists may soon be indicted and face trial for illegally accepting foreign funding – a criminal charge that violates their right to free association and could carry a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. The imminent proceedings are a major step in Egyptian authorities’ campaign to crush the last remnants of Egypt’s independent civil society and human rights community. Egypt’s media has recently reported that dozens of organizations are under criminal investigation, essentially for their peaceful work to monitor abuses and to hold Egypt’s government accountable to its own constitution and international human rights commitments. In recent weeks, Egyptian authorities have ordered the closure of a prominent anti-torture organization, the Nadeem Center; summoned staff from several human rights organizations for interrogation; banned prominent rights activists and advocates from traveling outside Egypt in violation of the Egyptian constitution; and harassed and threatened human rights activists with arrest and violence. The media regularly propagate vitriol against human rights defenders, portraying them as traitors and security threats. If this crackdown is allowed to reach its conclusion, it will silence an indigenous human rights community that has survived more than 30 years of authoritarian rule, leaving few if any Egyptians free to investigate mounting abuses by the state. The current attacks on Egypt’s rights advocates are a continuation of the same criminal prosecution of American and German NGO workers in Egypt that began in 2011. That prosecution, driven by senior members of the Egyptian government still in high office today, resulted in the June 2013 criminal convictions, in a deeply flawed trial, of 43 Egyptian and international NGO staff, including 17 American citizens. President al-Sisi, who was the head of military intelligence in 2011 when Egypt’s military government launched the investigation, has refused repeated requests to overturn the convictions. While the current crackdown is primarily targeting domestic organizations, there are indications that international NGOs may also face increased pressure, including some that currently do not even have offices or staff working in Egypt. On March 20, the newspaper Al Masry Al Youm published the names of more than 150 individuals and civil society organizations reportedly under investigation for receiving foreign funding, including prominent American and European organizations such as the Center for International Private Enterprise, the Solidarity Center, Transparency International, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, AMIDEAST, the National Democratic Institute, and the International Republican Institute. Mr. President, in your September 2014 Presidential Memorandum on Civil Society, you pledged that the United States government – including you personally – would stand firmly with those in civil society facing pressure or harassment from their governments. While the past five years have been tumultuous and challenging for US policy toward Egypt, this is another defining moment for the United States, a moment that tests your pledge to “stand with civil society.” Secretary Kerry’s March 18 statement of concern was welcome, but further action is urgently needed. Past practice demonstrates that when the United States government speaks clearly, in one voice, and consistently on NGO freedom and human rights in Egypt, the government in Cairo listens. It is essential that you act to stand up for human rights, freedom of association, and the rights of both Egyptian and international civil society organizations to work together on behalf of common goals. You must make crystal clear to President al-Sisi that continued assaults on civil society, including harassment of US organizations, will make it difficult for the administration to cooperate across a range of issues, including your administration’s efforts to promote American investment in Egypt and to provide financial assistance to the Egyptian government and military. If Egypt’s government continues down a path to destroy its own civil society, American support and assistance will become, in both principled and practical terms, impossible. Sincerely, The Working Group on Egypt

There are a lot of fans of Egypt’s President Sisi nowadays in Washington, who argue that he is fighting terrorism and deserves American support. Those fans ought to be aware of the ongoing persecution of Christians, which Sisi could act strongly to prevent--but does not. A very good example is the case of four Christian teenagers who have just been convicted under Egypt’s "blasphemy" laws--and sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum penalty. Their crime? They made a 30-second video, never meant to become public, mocking ISIS. The video satirizes a group saying (Muslim) prayers and then going off to behead people--and was made soon after ISIS beheaded a group of Copts. The full details are available at a good summary article published by the Atlantic Council. Apparently the video was taken to be an insult to Islam, and rioting and destruction of Christian property and homes followed. No one was ever punished for those crimes, of course. In fact, blasphemy laws are in Egypt as elsewhere used mostly against Christians. The daily insults of Christianity, mocking Christian beliefs and calling Christians "infidels," continue in Egypt. It is possible for President Sisi to tell the Prosecutor General to appeal these sentences, or to pardon these four teens himself. That is exactly what supporters of Sisi in Congress and the Obama administration should be asking him to do. And if he will not, they ought to be asking themselves what kind of Egypt he is creating, and why we want to support him in those efforts.

In Congressional testimony yesterday, Secretary of State Kerry was challenged on administration efforts to abandon human rights in Egypt. As the law reads today, the administration must withhold a certain amount of U.S. aid to Egypt unless it can certify human rights progress, and even the withheld amount can be granted with a "national security waiver," but the administration wants all connections between human rights and our aid program severed. Why? Kerry explained that there is a real threat of terrorism and extremism in Egypt. Here is how the Atlantic Council summarized his comments: Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged a deterioration in Egyptian freedoms in testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday, but defended the administration’s decision to waive human rights conditions on aid to the country. He pointed to Egypt’s strategic importance to the United States, the competition among global players for influence in Cairo, and the difficult security environment there. "There is a major challenge of extremism, bombs that have been going off in Cairo, bombs that have gone off in Sharm al-Sheikh, different challenges." On Wednesday, he told the Senate Appropriations Committee, "We have to try to work and thread a needle carefully that can balance the various interests that exist." This is interesting because it is exactly wrong. There is indeed a terrible threat of extremism and terrorism in Egypt, but Mr. Kerry appears to believe that regime repression is the way to fight it. Kerry acknowledged in his testimony that "We have seen a deterioration over the course of these last months with the arrests of journalists and some civil society personalities.” Does he believe that arresting journalists and "civil society personalities" fights extremism? Does jailing poets and bloggers stop terrorists? In fact the regime is flailing at every critic because it is failing in the struggle against terrorism and extremism--or indeed is feeding them. Those who said we must ignore human rights violations by the Mubarak regime argued that we should overlook its repression in the name of stability. Then one day, Mubarak was gone in a flash. So much for stability through repression. This regime is considerably more repressive than that of Mubarak, but similarly provides no answers to Egyptians who would like to see their nation change and progress. Mr. Sisi’s Gulf benefactors are becoming tired of excuses offered in place of real economic reform. Mr. Kerry presumably thinks he is helping Egypt, and Egyptians, with this "terrorism vs. stability" argument. But looking at the growth of disorder and terrorism in the Sinai and the Western Desert, and looking at the situation in the Egyptian heartland, it should be evident that Egypt’s problems will be addressed through jobs and factories and schools, and freedom--not solved in its jails. In fact, the miserable conditions in those jails, the torture and abuse, and the mixing of jihadis and Muslim Brothers and students and journalists, is a perfect formula for spreading extremism.

The Under Secretary of State for "Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights,"  Sarah Sewall, is today in Egypt. She might as well have stayed home. Because today, Secretary of State Kerry did a joint press appearance with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and showed that he has zero interest in "Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights" in Egypt. His remarks did not mention the words "human rights" or "democracy." Instead he spoke about an Egypt that exists only in fantasy. Kerry said Egypt is "going through a political transition." That’s simply not so: it was a military dictatorship under Mubarak and is now under Sisi, only the human rights situation is considerably worse today. Kerry said "We very much respect the important role that Egypt plays traditionally within the region – a leader of the Arab world in no uncertain terms." That’s also a fantasy. Egypt has never had less clout in the region than it does today. It is not at all a leader of the Arab world, and no Arab head of state consults Sisi for advice. Kerry said "the success of the transformation that is currently being worked on is critical for the United States and obviously for the region and for Egypt." What transformation is "being worked on" in Egypt? The move from a general named Mubarak to a general named Sisi is no transformation. There is no transformative economic reform whatsoever, and in fact the Army’s control of the economy has grown considerably under Sisi. Today’s Egypt is broke, and will over time receive less and less from its Gulf donors. The security situation in both the Sinai and the Western Desert is deteriorating, but Kerry did not mention that. The human rights situation is appalling, as Sisi crushes not only the Muslim Brotherhood but all political life. So much for "Civilian Security." The message Kerry transmitted in these remarks today is that he knows little about the real Egypt, or does not much care-- or is afraid to say anything approaching the truth. The Egyptian government must itself wonder which of the three possibilities is the truth. Meanwhile, Ms. Sewall ought to come home. These remarks have left her swinging in the wind.