The release of human rights activists, the “initiative”: Sisi’s gift to Macron

Cairo | The Egyptian regime anticipated the visit of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to France, by releasing the imprisoned jurists of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, in the context of the initiative’s activity, after approximately three weeks there was a state of tension and the status of the initiative and its license were suspended. One of the chapters of the ongoing debates between the regime and human rights organizations, which it has not been able to tame to this day. It is true that the Egyptian researcher Patrick George, who works in the “initiative” and is studying a doctorate in Italy, has been detained since last February, and his imprisonment is being renewed almost regularly, the last of which was two weeks ago during forty-five days without explaining the reasons to his defense team. However, three arrests of the members of the organization last month, in succession, generated an escalation that ended with their exit from the cases, but with the expectation of a new harassment soon.

The handling of this file by the judiciary is consistent with the regime’s interference in the direct judicial system. The accusations on which the arrest was made are the same that were completely refuted by official documents that were presented years ago to the official authorities to obtain work permits, the last of which was the request for regularization of conditions according to the Civil Associations Law and its reforms, after the Council of Ministers approved the executive regulation of the law after months of delays. However, part of the main pressure to free the three is due to their foreign relations, either through Egyptian human rights defender Bahey El Din Hassan, who lives in Paris to escape prosecutions, and the lawyer’s English wife. Karim Anara, who lobbied through the media and social media platforms, in addition to the role played by Some organizations, such as Amnesty International, did so in a systematic pressure campaign against which the regime could not resist.

The regime did not resist the external campaign to remove the three detainees

On the other hand, the founder and CEO of the initiative, Hussam Bahgat, who announced his departure for years under the weight of security pressures, has returned to the forefront as head of the administration after the arrest of all his leaders, noting that four years ago he was banned from traveling due to similar accusations about his activities. This prevented him from receiving international awards for his journalistic and human rights activities. While the state managed to force the director of the “Cairo Study Center”, Bahey El Din Hassan, to leave “Al Mahrousa” and then leave central Tunisia and move its founder between European cities, the “Egyptian Initiative” , in which those responsible are working to verify their movements and papers, they do not want, in turn, to leave under any circumstance, and say that they continue to work from within, despite the continuous harassment.
Meanwhile, the security services are launching massive campaigns to monitor the activities of the “initiative” and restrict the lawyers who cooperate with it in an unprecedented way. However, as a result of these observations, no real accusations were derived, especially with the completion of the necessary papers with government agencies, which turns the problem between the “initiative” and its successors who supported it abroad, and the majority of them are persecuted jurists, and among the State represented by the security and judicial organisms, in a legal battle for All the papers that must be completed, which is what the lawyers of the “initiative” usually work on. As a result, only a few entities remain in Egypt that work outside the state’s control within the legal and legal fields. This “initiative” receives financial support and European funding and several programs sponsored by the American University, which provides them with a cover to work legally in the field of research without delving into the political or analytical side. There is a bet among opposition jurists for the policy that the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, will follow towards Egypt, in parallel to monitoring whether it will be enough to press diplomatic statements without an effective change in US policy towards Cairo to allow that life opens up for the field of human rights that will be the “initiative”. Your locomotive.

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