Egypt

Active Cases

Egypt - Ongoing detention and deterioration in health of human rights defender

Front Line is deeply concerned for the continued detention and the deteriorating in health condition of Mosaad Soliman Hassan Hussein (a.k.a. Mosaad Abu Fagr) who has been in detention in Borg Al Arab prison in the Alexandria desert since his arrest on 26 December 2007. Mosaad Abu Fagr is a human rights defender, blogger and writer working on behalf of the rights of the Sinai community in Egypt. Front Line previously issued an urgent appeal concerning his arrest on 10 January 2008.  

• detention
• Egypt
• Front Line
• human rights
• human rights defender
• Mosaad Soliman Hassan Hussein

• Egypt

Human rights defenders in Egypt are subjected to acts of harassment, restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association, restrictions on freedom of movement, repressive legislation, stigmatisation, ill-treatment, torture and violent attacks. Increasingly, journalists and bloggers who have commented on the human rights situation in Egypt have been the subjects of threats, judicial harassment, beatings and arbitrary detention. Members of the judiciary who have expressed criticism of the government

According to the report of the UN SRSG on the situation of human rights defenders, non governmental organisations in Egypt “are active in the defense of various human rights including the freedom of expression and opinion, the freedom of religion, women's and minority rights, right to adequate housing, right to bodily integrity, right to health, right to fair trial and equal protection of the law, right to education, right to choose representative governments, refugee rights, and children's rights”. The situation of human rights defenders in Egypt is affected by the ongoing State of Emergency which was declared in 1981. NGOs have encountered problems with registration under the repressive Law 84 of 2002 which came into force in June 2003 and allows for criminal sanctions against members of NGOs who do not comply strictly with the registration proces. Peaceful demonstrations in defence of human rights have been violently dispersed by members of the police. There are concerns that the emergency anti-terrorist legislation may be used to restrict or undermine the work of peaceful human rights defenders.