NGO Forum Adopts Consolidated Resolution on the Human Rights Situation in Egypt, Reflecting Submissions from CFJ and Other Organizations

Banjul, The Gambia — The NGO Forum on the Participation of Non-Governmental Organizations in the 85th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has adopted a consolidated resolution addressing the deteriorating human rights situation in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The adopted text merges several submissions made by participating civil society organizations, including the Committee for Justice (CFJ), whose thematic inputs were incorporated into the final version approved on 19 October 2025.

The resolution notes with concern that, despite the comprehensive recommendations issued to Egypt during its 2019 review before the African Commission, the human rights situation has continued to deteriorate, with little meaningful progress achieved ahead of the 2025 review. It highlights continuing widespread and systematic violations, including torture, arbitrary detention, long-term enforced disappearance, reprisals against civil society, and the continued use of the death penalty. Human rights defenders, journalists, and activists continue to face harassment, intimidation, criminalization, and reprisals for engaging with regional and international mechanisms.

The adopted resolution raises particular alarm over the systematic practice of enforced disappearance, whereby individuals abducted by national security are held in informal places of detention for extended periods and later accused in fabricated cases, while prosecutors and judges routinely ignore testimonies of disappearance and ill-treatment. It further expresses grave concern about the practice of “case rotation,” whereby new charges are systematically added to prolong the arbitrary detention of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience nearing legal release limits.

The Forum also expressed deep concern over worsening detention conditions—especially in Badr and Wadi al-Natrun prisons—characterized by overcrowding, denial of family visits, barriers to legal access, torture, ill-treatment, hunger strikes, and repeated suicide attempts by detainees protesting inhumane treatment.

The resolution urges the African Commission to call on Egypt to take urgent measures to improve detention conditions, including ending solitary confinement, ensuring adequate healthcare, allowing regular family and lawyer visits, and addressing the alarming increase in suicide attempts linked to detention conditions. It further calls on Egypt to end the misuse of counter-terrorism legislation, fabricated charges, and case rotation practices that perpetuate arbitrary detention, and to guarantee respect for freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

The Forum also urges the African Commission to follow up on its 2019 recommendations by establishing a transparent monitoring and reporting mechanism during Egypt’s 2025 review. The resolution furthermore calls on Egypt to ratify the Maputo Protocol without reservations, reconsider laws restricting the movement and travel of certain categories of women, and enact a unified law to combat violence against women that consolidates all existing legal provisions and prohibits violence in all areas.

CFJ reaffirms its commitment to supporting regional human rights mechanisms and to contributing evidence-based documentation and advocacy for accountability and justice in Egypt.