Do not wonder why Egypt's map is upside down. Read the following post
- The population of Egypt is estimated at
83,386,739 as of July 1 2014.
- Egypt's population is equivalent to
1.15% of the total world population.
- Egypt ranks number 15 in the list of countries by population.
- The population density in Egypt
is 83 people per Km2.
- 44% of the population is urban
(36,713,659 people in 2014).
- The median age in Egypt is
25.5 years.
·
HUMAN RIGHTS
Egypt’s human rights crisis, the most serious in the country’s
modern history, continued unabated throughout 2014. The government consolidated
control through constriction of basic freedoms and a stifling campaign of
arrests targeting political opponents. Former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi, who took office in June, has overseen a reversal of the human rights
gains that followed the 2011 uprising. Security forces and an increasingly
politicized judiciary—apparently unnerved by rising armed group attacks—invoked
national security to muzzle nearly all dissent.
Judges routinely ordered detainees
held for months based on little, if any, evidence. Thousands arrested after
mass protests in 2013 remained in pretrial detention. Pervasive impunity
characterized the government’s response to security force abuses. Only four
officers have faced charges for human rights violations since July 3, 2013,
when the military overthrew President Mohamed Morsy. All the charges stemmed
from one incident in August 2013 in which police tear gassed a packed prison
van, killing 37 detainees. There has been no accountability for the deaths of
more than 1,000 protesters in a series of mostly peaceful demonstrations in
July and August 2013.
Protester Killings and Impunity
Security forces used excessive force to disperse protests
early in the year. Nearly 20 people, most of them Morsy supporters, died in
clashes with police in the first three days of January. On January 25, the
third anniversary of the 2011 uprising, at least 64 demonstrators died in
clashes with police in protests throughout the country.
Outgoing interim president, Adly
Mansour, who handed over power to al-Sisi on June 8, established a presidential
fact-finding committee in December 2013 “to gather information and evidence for
the violent events” that accompanied the June 30 mass protests and July 3 coup
that brought down Morsy, Egypt’s first freely elected president. An executive
summary of the commission’s report, released on November 26, did not recommend
that charges be brought against any member of the security forces or government
for the mass killing. Its mandate did not authorize it to subpoena witnesses or
documents, establish individual criminal liability, or make its findings
public.
In March, Mansour asked the
Justice Ministry to open a judicial investigation into the August 14, 2013,
dispersals of pro-Morsy sit-ins at Rab’a and Nahda squares in Cairo in which more than 800 protesters died.
The ministry announced it would not assign a judge to investigate these events
because this was the prerogative of the prosecutor general, whose office
claimed it was already investigating.
A March 18 court ruling
sentenced a police captain to 10 years in prison and three lower-ranking
officers to one-year suspended sentences for their role in the tear gas
suffocation of 37 protesters in a police van outside Abu Zaabel Prison on
August 18, 2013. An appeals court overturned the convictions on June 7 and
referred the case to the prosecutor general for further investigation. A
retrial is scheduled to begin on January 22, 2015.
Mass Arrests
An Interior Ministry official
acknowledged in July 2014 that since Morsy’s ouster a year earlier authorities
had arrested 22,000 people, most if not all suspected supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood. According to the Egyptian
Center for Economic and
Social Rights, more than 41,000 people were arrested or faced criminal
charges between July 2013 and May 2014.
Judges routinely renewed
detention orders of many of those arrested for months without charge or trial
and convicted many others in mass trials without establishing individual guilt
for criminal offenses. As of July 2014, according to Interior Ministry data
provided to the presidential fact-finding committee, more than 7,000 people
arrested in the fallout from Morsy’s removal remained in pretrial detention.
Those detained include around
29,000 Brotherhood members, including its high and mid-level leadership,
according to the Brotherhood. The arrest campaign expanded in 2014 to include
secular and leftist activists on charges that include protesting without
authorization, incitement, “thuggery,” vandalism, blocking roads, and belonging
to banned or “terrorist” groups.
Due Process Violations and Mass
Death Sentences
Egypt’s judiciary exhibited serious procedural deficiencies
that deprived detainees of basic due process rights. Though authorities in
November 2013 lifted the state of emergency imposed at the time of Morsy’s
removal, judges often renewed pretrial detention orders despite a lack of
evidence that would warrant prosecution.
Many trials violated Egyptian
law as well as international standards. In March and April, a criminal
court judge in the governorate of Minya handed down the death
penalty to more than 1,200 people allegedly involved in two attacks on
police that resulted in the death of one officer. The judge did not allow
the defendants the right to mount a meaningful defense or ensure that all had
access to counsel.
The first trial, which resulted
in 529 death sentences, lasted less than an hour, and only 74 defendants were
present. The court also barred some defense lawyers from attending. In the
second trial, which yielded 683 death sentences, none of the defendants
attended.
Following legally mandated
advice from the grand mufti, Egypt’s
top religious authority, the judge confirmed 220 of the death sentences, which
the prosecutor general automatically appealed as required by law. In December,
a separate judge in the governorate of Giza
issued preliminary death sentences to 188 people accused of attacking a police
station in August 2013 and killing 14 policemen. According to the Brotherhood,
259 of its members, including Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, have been sentenced
to death since Morsy’s ouster.
Egypt’s 2014 constitution permits military trials for
civilians, and on October 27, 2014, al-Sisi issued a decree expanding military
court jurisdiction to cover crimes that occur on any public, state-owned, or
“vital” property. Since the decree, prosecutors have referred at least 455
people—the vast majority of them Brotherhood members—to military court. In
April, a military court sentenced a social media manager for the online news
website Rassd to one year in prison for helping to leak a tape of remarks by
al-Sisi during his time as defense minister. The court acquitted one Rassd
employee and handed down three-year sentences to an army conscript and two
other men who remain at large. In May and September, military courts handed
down one-year sentences to 10 people—most of them Brotherhood members or allied
politicians—for attempting to cross into Sudan illegally. In November, a
military court in Suez
sentenced 17 people to between 5 and 10 years in prison for throwing rocks and
incendiary devices at soldiers during the violence following Morsy’s removal.
Torture and Ill-Treatment
At least 90 people died in local
police stations and security directorates in the governorates of Cairo and Giza
alone in 2014, according to an investigation by the Egyptian newspaper Al Watan,
which cited statistics from the Justice Ministry’s Forensic Medical Authority.
That number represented a 38 percent increase from the year before.
A spokesman for the authority
told the newspaper that prison overcrowding had forced authorities to hold
detainees in police stations and other places of temporary detention which were
not well ventilated or otherwise properly equipped. Witnesses told Human Rights
Watch that police and prison authorities often failed to provide proper medical
care to prisoners, leading to death. In some cases of deaths in detention,
lawyers and relatives alleged that authorities had tortured the victim.
Detainees also described severe
beatings during arrest, arrival at police stations, and transfer between
prisons. Scores detained in January protests complained of torture, including
electric shocks, to coerce confessions. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal
Rights documented the enforced disappearance and torture of dozens of civilians
in military detention.
Attacks by Armed Groups
The security situation deteriorated, particularly in the
Sinai, as armed groups targeted security forces, buildings, checkpoints, and
vehicles. An Egyptian insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, announced that it
has joined the extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Some
attacks targeted tourists or indiscriminately harmed ordinary
citizens. At least 892 people—including militants, civilians and security
forces—died in the governorate of North Sinai
in 2014, according to press reports.
Freedom of Association,
Expression, and Assembly
Egypt’s new constitution contains language that appears to
protect free expression, peaceful assembly, and association, but authorities
detained thousands solely for their peaceful exercise of these rights.
Free Expression
Authorities detained dozens of
people for such offences as possessing flyers with anti-military slogans,
rapping in public against the police, or displaying signs commemorating victims
of the Rab’a dispersal. Journalists, academics, former lawmakers and human
rights defenders were among those charged with crimes or banned from travel
outside Egypt.
Police arrested three Al Jazeera English journalists, Mohamed Fahmy, Peter
Greste, and Baher Mohamed, in late December 2013, and a court handed down
multi-year prison sentences in June 2014 after a trial in which prosecutors
failed to present any credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Free Assembly
A November 2013 law on public assembly allowed the Interior Ministry to ban and forcefully disperse
protests and arrest participants on vague grounds such as “imped[ing] citizens’
interests.” On April 7, 2014, a court rejected appeals from April 6 Youth
Movement co-founders Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel and activist Ahmed Douma
against their three-year sentences for breaking the law. Authorities also used
the law to detain prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and human rights
defenders Mahienour al-Masry and Yara Sallam.
Free Association
In September 2014, al-Sisi
signed an amendment to the penal code that mandates a life sentence and a fine
of 500,000 Egyptian pounds (US$69,900) for anyone who takes foreign funding to
harm the national “interest” or “unity,” a provision Egyptian rights activists
fear will be used against them and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Authorities banned the Muslim
Brotherhood and declared it a terrorist organization in December 2013,
following a bomb attack on a Nile Delta police station claimed by Ansar Beit
al-Maqdis. Authorities put forward no evidence to support the designation, but
in a television statement Deputy Prime Minister Hossam Eisa cited as
justification the 1948 assassination of Egypt’s prime minister and the
alleged torture of Brotherhood opponents during the pro-Morsy sit-ins in July
and August 2013. Authorities froze the assets of more than 1,000 associations
allegedly tied to the Brotherhood, such as the Islamic Medical Association,
which served residents of poor neighborhoods, in addition to dozens of
Brotherhood-affiliated schools.
On April 28, the Court of Urgent
Matters banned activities of the April 6 Youth Movement and authorized
the authorities to shut its headquarters on grounds that it engaged in
espionage and harmed Egypt’s image abroad, based on a complaint from lawyer
Ashraf Said, who said recorded phone calls among April 6 members aired on
television “proved” the activists had “conspired against state institutions.”
Authorities raided the Alexandria office of the Egyptian Center
for Economic and Social Rights on May 22, briefly arresting at least 15
activists and lawyers and subjecting them to sexual harassment and beatings.
Riot police and military troops also broke up labor protests and strikes.
The Social Solidarity Ministry
in June 2014 presented a draft law on associations that would give the
government security agencies veto power over NGO activities as well as their
registration and funding. The law would also cripple their capacity to
communicate or co-operate with groups abroad.
The Social Solidarity Ministry
did not enforce a November 10 deadline for all NGOs to register under the
current Law of Civic Associations and Foundations (Law 84 of 2002), which would
give the government tight control over their activities. Many Egyptian human
rights organizations are currently registered as civil companies or law firms
due to the highly restrictive law. However, several high-profile human rights
defenders left the country fearing arrest and prosecution, and some groups
suspended their activities. The government has pledged to make the NGOs
register.
Freedom of Religion and Sectarian
Violence
Egypt’s 2014 constitution guarantees freedom of religion and
the rights of minorities, but authorities continued to prosecute writers and
activists on charges of “contempt of religion” and “blasphemy,” including
religious minorities and proclaimed atheists. In June, an appeals court in the
governorate of Beni Suef upheld a five-year sentence in absentia for author
Karam Saber, a Muslim convicted for contempt of religion in 2013 for his short
story collection Where Is God? Attacks on churches and properties of
Christians continued in 2014, and in many cases authorities failed to
intervene.
Violence and Discrimination
against Women
Sexual harassment and assault of
women and girls in public spaces continued in spite of recent government
efforts to combat the practice, including arresting and prosecuting some men
for such crimes, which have long been committed with impunity.
Egyptian rights groups
documented at least nine incidents of mob sexual assault and harassment in Cairo’s Tahrir Square
between June 3 and June 8, 2014, as demonstrators celebrated al-Sisi’s
election. Seven men were eventually handed sentences ranging to life for the
attacks, and interim President Mansour issued a law on June 5 that for the
first time defined and outlawed sexual harassment and set escalating penalties
for different offenses.
Al-Sisi ordered the formation of
a ministerial committee to determine a national strategy to address harassment.
On June 12, the committee met and proposed plans that included increasing
security for women in public squares and gatherings, as well as raising
awareness about harassment against women through media campaigns and schools.
The committee has not proposed a comprehensive law on violence against
women nor a national strategy to implement such a law.
No law criminalizes domestic
violence. Other forms of violence against women, including child marriage and
female genital mutilation (FGM), continued in some areas, despite laws
prohibiting them. On November 20, the country’s first trial for FGM, which
began after a 13-year-old girl died from an allergic reaction to penicillin,
ended in an acquittal for the girl’s father and the doctor who performed the
procedure. The prosecutor appealed the acquittal. Personal status laws in Egypt
continue to discriminate against women in relation to marriage, divorce, child
custody, and inheritance.
Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and
Migrants
Egypt violated the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and
migrants within its borders. Syrians represent one of the largest refugee
populations, with nearly 140,000 registered with the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Egypt
prevented the UNHCR from registering Palestinians from Syria, and
security officials maintained a restrictive visa and security clearance
requirement enacted following the ouster of Morsy. In some instances
authorities coerced refugees from Syria
to leave to Lebanon, without
assurances they would be protected there, and to Syria, where they face persecution,
detention, and violence.
Egypt, where are you taken to?
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