Following efforts to contribute to the drafting of Egypt’s second National Human Rights Strategy, the undersigned organisations wish to raise an early concern regarding the discourse emerging around the forthcoming strategy.
We followed with close attention the Government’s event held on 28 September concerning the forthcoming National Human Rights Strategy. On this occasion, issues relating to reform of the criminal justice system received only limited attention. Key concerns repeatedly documented by United Nations human rights mechanisms were not addressed, including findings concerning the systematic practice of torture, the use of torture to obtain confessions, the admission of torture-tainted confessions in judicial proceedings, and incommunicado detention. The UN Committee against Torture has previously concluded that torture is a systematic practice in Egypt.
References to criminal justice reform were largely retrospective and were presented primarily in the context of what the Government considers to be achievements under the first National Human Rights Strategy. These included references to the Criminal Procedure Code, the Presidential Pardon Committee, the National Dialogue, prison conditions, the transformation of prisons into Correction and Rehabilitation Centres, and the opening of new facilities. However, these references did not indicate how the structural reforms needed within the criminal justice system would be addressed under the second strategy. Rather, they served primarily to highlight measures that the Government considers having already constituted progress in this area.
The undersigned organisations have previously documented how such measures have not brought about the substantive changes needed in the administration of justice or in ensuring the effective protection of the fundamental rights of Egyptian citizens.
We are concerned that a failure to clearly prioritise urgent human rights issues repeatedly raised by United Nations human rights mechanisms, including the systematic practice of torture, risks undermining the capacity of the second strategy to deliver the reforms that are urgently needed.
We are further concerned that repeated references to constitutional guarantees, without acknowledging the gap between these protections and their implementation in practice, risk preventing the second strategy from fulfilling its purpose.
Finally, we welcome the Supreme Standing Committee’s acknowledgment of civil society initiatives. However, acknowledgment alone is insufficient to ensure the meaningful participation of civil society in the development and implementation of the strategy.
We therefore call for the active and meaningful involvement of civil society, alongside the political will necessary to address the structural issues that continue to expose Egyptian citizens to grave violations of their rights.
