2nd icfr delegation

11 to 14 March 2014

International Coalition for Freedoms & Rights

International Coalition for Freedoms & Rights www.icfr.info maryam@icfr.info anas@icfr.info +44 (789) 980 60 00 +90 (548) 298 77 84 InternationalFreedomCoalition @icfreng

Introduction

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Terms of Refrence

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Observers & Visits

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Respect for International Human Rights Law

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Recommendations

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Introduction The International Coalition for Freedoms and Rights ( I C F R ) organized a delegation of international lawyers to Egypt a part of the ongoing effort to understand the situation of human rights in Egypt after 3 July 2013 when a military coup removed Mr. Mohammed Morsi, who was Egypt's first democratically elected President.

The delegation met with a selection of Egyptian authorities and civil society actors. The conclusions of the delegation indicated that serious human rights concerns exist in Egypt today. These concerns are amplified by the overthrow of the elected government by a military coup. The concerns are accentuated by the fact that the current Egyptian authorities claim that there has been a democratic transition in Egypt despite substantial domestic and international recognition that the overthrow of the elected

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government was a military coup.

In this situation of deteriorating human rights, especially disturbing were the indications of widespread abuse of the human rights of women. The delegation also noted other significant concerns about arbitrary detentions, torture, unfair trials, the treatment of prisoners, the manipulation of Egyptian judiciary, and limitations on the freedoms of expression, assembly, and association. The deteriorating social and economic conditions in Egypt also raise issues about social and economic human rights such as the rights to health, education, and a minimum standard of living.

This report summarizes the visit of the delegation led by Mr. Ramsey Clark, a former US A t t o r n e y - G e n e r a l , a n d M r.

Abdeen Jabara, a former ArabAmerican Anti-Discrimination Committee President and member of the Board of Directors

of the Center for Constitutional Rights that visited Egypt from 11 to 14 March 2014. This visit was made in circumstances where a broad spectrum of commentators have lamented the deterioration of the social and economic situation and in the wake of a recent statement made by Egyptian Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Hisham Badr at the 25th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland that there were no serious human rights problems in Egypt. There is a wide divergence of opinion between supporters of the military coup and Anti-Coup Egyptians inside and outside Egypt about the human rights situation in Egypt after the military coup.

Rather than being a comprehensive review of human rights in Egypt, this report merely seeks to bring to light a few serious human rights problems

that have been indicated by the persons to whom the delegation spoke. The names of individuals have been omitted as several people expressed fear of reprisals; thus the report features solely the names of government

o ffi c i a l s w h o s p o k e t o t h e delegation in official capacities.

More information on the background to the human rights situation in Egypt, and particularly the trials of President Morsi, can be found in the Report

of the Delegation to Egypt of Lawyers from the International Coalition for Freedoms and Rights (ICFR) from 5 to 10 January 2014.

Terms of Reference This delegation visit was organized by the International Coalition for Freedoms and Rights (ICFR). It was asked to meet with government and non-government officials to assess the state of human rights in Egypt. The delegation agreed that its terms of reference would be as follows: a. to meet with a broad number of people both from the authorities and civil society to assess the state of human rights generally in Egypt; and b. to assess whether human rights standards that have been agreed to by Egypt as international human rights law are being respected.

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Observers & Visits The delegation of lawyers was led by Mr. Ramsey Clark (United States of America), Abdeen Jabara (United States of America), and included Mr. Arno Develay, (United States of America and France), and Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler (United States of America and State of Palestine). Mr. Ramsey Clark was the 63rd Attorney-General of the United States, is a practicing lawyer, and is an internationally renown human rights defender.

Abdeeen Jabara an American lawyer, a former President of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, a member of the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a foremost defender of ArabAmerican's civil rights. Mr Arno Develay works on human rights and criminal law, is a practicing lawyer and is member of the bars

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in both France (Paris) and the United States (Washington State). Dr. Doebbler practices international human rights law before international bodies, teaches law, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar in the United States.

The delegation met with Egypt's Minister of Justice Mr. Nayer Othman Mohamed and the Vice-President of Egypt's National Council for Human Rights ( N C H R ) Mr. Abd El Ghaffar Shokr. The NCHR is a governmental organization. The delegation also met with the relatives of detainees, former women prisoners, students, academics, activists, and defense lawyers. Requests to attend a public court session and to visit President Morsi were rejected by the respective judge and the Prosecutor-General.

Both the Prosecutor-General and his deputy for International Cooperation refused to meet the delegation.

The Secretary-General of the Arab League also refused a request to meet with the delegation. In ďŹ ve days in Egypt, delegation members had more than 40 hours of meeting with Egyptians from the government and non-governmental organizations.

Respect for International Human Rights Law i. Applicable law Egypt has ratified multiple international human rights instruments. Of importance to this trial observation visit are especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (I C C P R), G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force 23 March 1976 (Egypt has not ratified the Optional Protocol allowing individual petitions), and the African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights ( A C H P R ), adopted 27 June 1981, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3 rev. 5, 21 I.L.M. 58 (1982), entered into force 21 October 1986. These two treaties have been the focus of the observation visit and report. They reflect international law that the government of Egypt has agreed to respect. Other treaties of relevance that Egypt has ratified are the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which

serves as the basis of the work of the Arab Commission on Human Rights, and the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights under Islam, which serves as the basis of the work of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights of the O I C .

Notably Egypt has not ratified the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. ii. Observations about the situation of human rights in Egypt Both government officials and non-governmental actors acknowledged that Egypt is suffering from an unprecedented state of insecurity and social and economic decline. This in turn has led to a precarious state of human rights in Egypt. The VicePresident of the National Human Rights Council described the situation stating that “human rights in Egypt are in peril … because we are a society going through social and violent conflict.”

While the government officials blamed this situation on the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders have been imprisoned for months, the civil society actors to whom the delegation spoke

attributed the problems to the authorities currently wielding power. The majority of civil society actors with whom the delegation spoke attributed the current problems to the 3 July 2013 military coup that replaced the elected government of President Mohamed Morsi.

A lawyer explained to the delegation that the Muslim Brotherhood had first decided not to field a candidate for President in 2012. Although the Muslim Brotherhood had won the parliamentary elections, it was not until they learned of a plot to close the Parliament, as eventually happened, that the Freedom and Justice Party, to which many members off the Muslim Brotherhood belong, decided to compete for the presidency. Dr. Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, which is closely aligned to the Muslim Brotherhood, won this election.

The removal of an elected president by a military coup raises serious human rights concerns and appears to be the starting point for many contemporary human rights problems in Egypt. The military coup itself is a serious violation of the right to participate in one's

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democracy of the majority voters in the 2012 presidential elections.

This right is protected in both the ICCPR (art. 25) and the ACHPR (art. 13). The deterioration in the human rights situation in the aftermath of the military coup appears to be due to the military coup leaders' unwillingness to allow any significant expressions of dissent.

Numerous students recounted tales of arbitrary arrest, beatings, sexual abuse, and interference with their right of peaceful protest. Such actions are prohibited under both the ICCPR and the ACHPR. Of particular concern was the large number of egregious human rights abuses carried out against women. Several civil society actors the delegation met at different times and separate from each other, reiterated the claim that the number of sexual and other forms of abuse against women is higher than it has ever been in Egypt in recent times. The delegation was told repeatedly that many of the persons who are being arrested and mistreated are juveniles under 18-years-ofage.

After the military coup and detaining of President Morsi there were widespread protests and sit-ins across Egypt. The largest of these occurred at Raba'a al-Adawiyya Square and

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al-Nahda Square in Giza near Cairo University. These sit-ins lasted approximately six weeks until they were brutally attacked on 14 August 2013 by police, military and security authorities using armed force against demonstrators; including rooftop snipers, helicopters, armored vehicles, and other excessive forms of armed force. This attack, described below, preceded the attacks on police and police stations that took place from 15 to 20 August 2013 throughout Egypt.

One of the most serious incidents occurred on 14 August 2013 when the Egyptian army, police and security forces attacked the generally peaceful sit-ins at the Raba'a Al-Adaweya Square in Naser City and alNahda Square near Cairo University. Estimates of how many people were at the Raba'a sit-in when it was attacked range from the tens of thousands to more than 250,000. The number of people killed, including youth, women and children, ranges from a minimum of 638, reported by the government, to more than 6000, reported by activists.

Thousands of people were injured. The government justified its action on claims that the camp was involved in violence and had become a public nuisance.

Whatever the true number of

dead and injured, and even if the government's claim about the camp were true, the level of violence used by government forces was disproportionate and constitutes a massive and serious violation of human rights.

During the visit the delegation discussed the Raba'a incident with the Vice-President of the NCHR, which had just released its own report on the incident. The report claimed that the demonstrators at the Raba'a sit-in had weapons and had fired first on the police and soldiers.

The report also stated that the response of the authorities against the demonstrators was disproportionate. The NCHR report, according to the VicePresident and Secretary-General of the NCHR in response to question from the delegation, was based on information provided by the authorities, media, and Wikithawra. No person who was at the Raba'a sitin or any Muslim Brotherhood member gave evidence to the NCHR. Moreover, videos that the NCHR provided the delegation of plain clothes youth totting weapons do not exclude that these youth might have been agents provocateurs or plain cloths youth working for the security, police or military forces sent to provoke violence. Based on the evidence that went into

writing the NCHR report, the report can be viewed as a statement of the Egyptian authorities and as such an admission of the massive disproportional use of force by these authorities. Such a use of force cannot be justified on any of the grounds put forward by the authorities. Despite this conclusion, these serious incidents have not led to the investigation or prosecution of any police, security, or military personnel or of any official who was involved in ordering the attack, among which are Minister of Defense, the Minister of Interior, the President, the VicePresident, the Prime-Minister, as well as the chiefs of of police and security.

As Parliament has been dissolved, the authorities that control the executive after the military coup exercise executive and legislative powers. The delegation was told that Egypt's President Mr. Adly Mansour who came into office after the military coup and who had been the President of the Constitutional Court, effectively exercises the executive and legislative powers together with the other cabinet ministers who were installed after the military coup. The cabinet of the military coup leaders was reshuffled in late February 2014.

Comments from both

representatives of the authorities as well as civil society indicate that the freedoms of expression, assembly, and association are being challenged by the authorities despite the fact that these are rights have been agreed to by Egypt in several international human rights instruments, including both the universal and regional human rights treaties mentioned above.

These interferences with these rights included the arrest and detention of journalists merely for their contacts with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, harassment of journalists, denial of visa to journalists, the arrest of peaceful protesters due to their protesting the military coup or even calling for Egyptians to boycott the January 2014 referendum on a new Constitution that was boycotted by almost two-thirds of all Egyptian voters, and the use of violence and sometimes inhumane and degrading treatment against protesters, often women and girls, who peacefully express their opposition to the military coup. In this context, the authorities recently promulgated a new decree law on demonstrations that Egyptian human rights defenders and the National Council on Human Rights have criticized. These organizations

complained that it is overly broad and restricts the rights of freedom of expression, assembly, and association. The NCHR provided us with their written comments on this law, which they had also submitted to the authorities.

Civil society members also criticized the recently adopted decree law on elections for providing the National Election Commission complete immunity from legal challenges.

While the delegation was visiting Cairo former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq withdrew from the upcoming presidential elections citing his belief that there would be widespread election fraud in any election in which General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was participating as a candidate.

In December 2013 the authorities designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization claiming that they were behind the violence that g r i p p e d t h e c o u n t r y. T h i s effectively banned them from public life and suspended the freedom of expression, association and assembly of all persons who identified themselves with this group. This happened despite the fact that the Freedom and Justice Party, which is identified as being aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, won less than two years earlier both Parliamentary

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and Presidential elections that were widely acknowledged to h a v e b e e n f r e e a n d f a i r.

Moreover, this designation was made despite the fact that numerous other groups had responded with some degree of violence to the authorities' disproportionate use of force to quell opposition to the military coup, especially to the violent attack on the Raba'a al-Adawiyya Square sit-in.

Independence of courts and the judiciary are guaranteed under Egyptian and international law. The Minister of Justice, Mr. Nayer Othman Mohamed, who is responsible for the independence of the courts and the judiciary in Egypt, stated to the delegation that after the military coup on 3 July 2013, which he referred to as a “revolution” in Egypt, no person, not even a Minister, could interfere with the independence of the courts or the judiciary.

Nevertheless, several lawyers and victims who are seeking redress through the courts reported that they believed there was significant interference with the independence of the judiciary as well as with the right to fair trial.

Alleged interferences with the judiciary included allegations by lawyers that judges were no longer picked to adjudicate cases through a random procedure as required by law. Instead, the

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delegation was told, judges are selected to deal with specific cases due to the their allegiance to the military coup leaders.

Lawyers also reported interferences with the human right to a fair trial, which is guaranteed under Egyptian and international law. The alleged interferences with the right to fair trial included lawyers being arrested for representing clients who opposed the military coup.

The delegation was told by several lawyers that more than 300 lawyers had been arrested.

On the day of its arrival, the delegation was told of a recent incident whereby a lawyer had been arrested while visiting his client in prison.

Lawyers have also reported that defendants are denied access to their lawyers or their family, confessions are often coerced from defendants by threats directed to them or to their family members, family members are prohibited from passing food and other necessities to prisoners, incommunicado detention and solidarity confinement are widespread, and, in many cases, especially those involving high profile political prisoners, defendants are prevented from effectively participating in their own defense.

Because of the number of different lawyers that

corroborated these interferences, the delegation concludes from this evidence that an endemic denial of fair trial and abuse of judicial procedure appears to exist in Egypt. This is a matter of paramount concern for ensuring respect for the rule of both national and international law and should be given adequate and urgent attention by the Egyptian authorities and the international community.

Both lawyers and family members reported not being able to meet with imprisoned clients or family members because they fear reprisals from the authorities.

Some family members of detainees also reported that their relatives were being abused in prison. The delegation was also told that women in particular have been subjected to abuse in prison. Families of abused women as well as the women themselves emphasized the need to punish the perpetrators of such crimes.

As concerns the trials of President Morsi, the Minister of J u s t i c e M r. N a y e r O t h m a n Mohamed stated that article 152 of the 2012 Egyptian Constitution, which was in force on 3 July 2013 when President Morsi was removed, was not being applied because no implementing legislation had been enacted. The Vice-

President of Egypt's National Human Rights Council, however, stated that the Constitution is self-executing and does not require implementing legislation.

The delegation believes that is the correct interpretation of the Egyptian Constitution as it accords with the practice of almost every State that has adopted a national constitution.

In any event, the trials of President Morsi appear to be unfair due not only to the illegality of the courts trying him, but also to their failure to abide by

fundamental standards of due process. Denying President Morsi access to lawyers and family and denying him adequate time and facilities to prepare his defense are serious violations of his right to a fair trial.

Finally, several activists and family members of persons who are in detention or who have been killed or injured as well as the Vice-President of the National Human Rights Council have emphasized the need to provide redress to individuals and families who have suffered injury.

Such redress appears to be considered an important part of any effort to achieve reconciliation. Such redress might also help to lessen the increasing hostility in society between the minority of Egyptians who support the military coup and the majority who are demanding a return to democracy.

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Recommendations In light of the above visit and the above comments the international lawyers undertaking this visit have the following recommendations: 1. That the most senior authorities in Egypt take immediate action to end human rights violations for which they are responsible and to commence an independent and impartial investigation into all credible allegations of human rights abuses carried out by officials or officers under their authority.

2. That the authorities of Egypt takes steps to end its hostilities against the Muslim Brotherhood and its members and immediately and unconditionally seek talks aimed at restoring the elected government while ensuring a commitment to human rights.

3. That the Egyptian authorities and all political and civil society actors engage in seeking common ground that will lead to restoring democracy as soon as possible.

4. That the Egyptian authorities impartially investigate, arrest, and punish officers who have committed, and officials who have ordered, wrongful acts against Egyptians from any sector of society.

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International Coalition for Freedoms & Rights