Amnesty International Report 2017/18

152

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

other ill-treatment and enforced 

disappearance against hundreds of people, 

and dozens were extrajudicially executed 

with impunity. The crackdown on civil 

society escalated with NGO staff being 

subjected to additional interrogations, travel 

bans and asset freezes. Arbitrary arrests and 

detentions followed by grossly unfair trials 

of government critics, peaceful protesters, 

journalists and human rights defenders 

were routine. Mass unfair trials continued 

before civilian and military courts, with 

dozens sentenced to death. Women 

continued to be subjected to sexual and 

gender-based violence and were 

discriminated against in law and practice. 

The authorities brought criminal charges for 

defamation of religion and “habitual 

debauchery” on the basis of people’s real or 

perceived sexual orientation.

BACKGROUND

In June, President al-Sisi ceded sovereignty 

over two uninhabited Red Sea islands to 

Saudi Arabia, leading to widespread public 

criticism. In July, EU-Egypt Association 

council meetings resumed for the first time 

since 2011 and the priorities of the 

Association were finalized.

In February a member of parliament 

proposed a constitutional amendment to 

extend the presidential term from four to six 

years. In April, President al-Sisi passed a new 

set of legislative amendments weakening fair 

trial guarantees and facilitating arbitrary 

arrests, indefinite pre-trial detention, 

enforced disappearances and the passing of 

more sentences. The amendments also 

allowed criminal courts to list people and 

entities on “terrorism lists” based solely on 

police information. Also in April, President al-

Sisi approved the Judicial Bodies Law 13 of 

2017, granting him the authority to appoint 

the heads of judicial bodies, including the 

Court of Cassation and the State Council, two 

courts that had hitherto been regarded as the 

most independent judicial bodies in holding 

the executive to account.

1

At least 111 security agents were killed, 

mostly in North Sinai. The armed group 

Willayet Sinai, affiliated to the armed group 

Islamic State (IS), claimed responsibility for 

most of the attacks across the country, with 

smaller attacks claimed by other armed 

groups, such as Hasm, Liwaa al-Thawra and 

Ansar al-Islam. In April, IS claimed 

responsibility for the bombing of two 

churches in Tanta and Alexandria which left 

at least 44 dead.

 

In October, at least 16 

officials from the Ministry of the Interior were 

killed in an ambush in the western desert, a 

rare attack on the mainland. In a significant 

shift in targeting by armed groups, a 

November attack on a mosque in North Sinai 

during Friday prayers killed at least 300 

people.

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

The authorities continued to curb the work of 

human rights defenders in an unprecedented 

manner as part of their relentless efforts to 

silence all critical voices. In February the 

authorities shut down the El-Nadeem Center, 

an NGO offering support to survivors of 

torture and violence. The criminal 

investigations into so-called “Case 173” 

against human rights defenders and NGOs 

were ongoing; investigative judges 

summoned at least 28 additional human 

rights defenders and NGO staff for 

interrogation during the year, bringing the 

total to 66 people summoned or investigated 

in the case since 2013. They were 

questioned in relation to charges that 

included “receiving foreign funding to harm 

Egyptian national security” under Article 78 

of the Penal Code, which carries a sentence 

of up to 25 years’ imprisonment. The 

investigative judges also ordered three 

additional travel bans, bringing to 25 the 

number of human rights defenders banned 

from travelling outside Egypt. In January a 

court ordered the freezing of the assets of the 

NGOs Nazra for Feminist Studies and the 

Arab Organization for Penal Reform and their 

directors.

In May, President al-Sisi signed a draconian 

new law giving the authorities broad powers 

to deny NGOs registration, dissolve NGOs 

and dismiss their boards of administration. 

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

153

The law also provided for five years’ 

imprisonment for publishing research without 

government permission.

2

 The government 

had not issued the executive regulations to 

enable it to start implementing the law by the 

end of the year.

FREEDOMS OF EXPRESSION AND 

ASSEMBLY

Between January and May, courts sentenced 

at least 15 journalists to prison terms ranging 

from three months to five years on charges 

related solely to their writing, including 

defamation and the publication of what the 

authorities deemed “false information”. On 

25 September a court sentenced former 

presidential candidate and prominent human 

rights lawyer Khaled Ali to three months’ 

imprisonment on charges of “violating public 

decency” in relation to a photograph showing 

him celebrating a court ruling ordering a halt 

to the handover of two islands to Saudi 

Arabia.

3

 From May onwards, the authorities 

blocked at least 434 websites, including 

those of independent newspapers such as 

Mada Masr and human rights organizations 

such as the Arab Network for Human Rights 

Information. In March the Minister of Justice 

referred two judges, Hisham Raouf and 

Assem Abdelgabar, to a disciplinary hearing 

for participating in a workshop organized by 

an Egyptian human rights group to draft a law 

against torture.

Security forces arrested at least 240 political 

activists and protesters between April and 

September on charges relating to online 

posts the authorities considered “insulting” to 

the President or for participating in 

unauthorized protests. In April, a criminal 

court sentenced lawyer and activist 

Mohamed Ramadan to 10 years’ 

imprisonment in his absence under the 

draconian Counter-terrorism Law.

4

 In 

December, an Alexandrian court sentenced 

human rights lawyer Mahinour El-Masry to 

two years’ imprisonment for her peaceful 

participation in a protest.

ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS

Security forces continued to arrest hundreds 

of people based on their membership or 

perceived membership of the Muslim 

Brotherhood, rounding them up from their 

homes or places of work or, in one case, from 

a holiday resort.

The authorities used prolonged pre-trial 

detention, often for periods of more than two 

years, as means to punish dissidents. In 

October a judge renewed the pre-trial 

detention of human rights defender Hisham 

Gaafar, despite him having been detained for 

more than the two-year limit under Egyptian 

law. Photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, 

known as Shawkan, had already spent two 

years in pre-trial detention when his trial 

started in August 2015. Throughout 2017 he 

remained in detention alongside 738 co-

defendants as their trial continued.

Upon release, political activists were often 

required to serve probation periods of up to 

12 hours a day in a local police station, 

amounting to arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS AND 

ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

Forces of the Ministry of the Interior 

continued to subject to enforced 

disappearance and extrajudicially execute 

people suspected of engaging in political 

violence. According to the Egyptian 

Commission for Rights and Freedoms, 

security forces subjected at least 165 people 

to enforced disappearance between January 

and August for periods ranging from seven to 

30 days.

The Ministry of the Interior claimed that 

more than 120 people were shot dead in an 

exchange of fire with security forces during 

the year. However, in many of these cases the 

people killed were already in state custody 

after having been subjected to enforced 

disappearance. In May the Ministry 

announced the death of schoolteacher 

Mohamed Abdelsatar “in an exchange of fire 

with the police”. However, his colleagues had 

witnessed his arrest a month earlier from his 

workplace. In April, a leaked video showed 

military forces in North Sinai extrajudicially 

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