Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Towards Formulating a New Strategy for Dealing with Human Rights Reports

On 22/10/2017 Formulating a New Strategy for Dealing with Human Rights Reports Egypt's being made a subject of international observations and constant lecturing on human rights is due to two main reasons. The first is external: it is a measure taken by certain countries and foreign powers whose schemes Egyptian determination has succeeded in thwarting, and these observations grow in frequency and are timed to coincide with every tangible progress Egypt achieves, whether in combating terrorism, in its reform and economic development plans, or in its continued successes internationally as a result of the efforts to restore Egypt's influential regional and global role, while the internal front remains cohesive despite the cost of economic reform policies and the terrorist group's attempts to undermine the conviction and ability of the Egyptian people to meet the challenges and move towards a promising future for the coming generations. This is well known and is dealt with according to a national vision that serves the public interest. Inevitably, international human rights organizations and committees will not stop issuing their reports, which are biased in favor of the international powers that use them and impose their own vision on them, so that they become a political reference and mechanism imposed to reduce or withhold aid that is an inherent right under the peace treaty with Israel, regardless of its importance and its effect on national decision-making. An example is the US administration's yielding to cut some of the amounts allocated under the US aid program to Egypt, whether by reducing some components of the program's economic part or by postponing the disbursement of some components of its military part, on the pretext of a lack of progress on respect for human rights and democratic standards; or they are used in an attempt to impose international isolation in order to exert political and economic pressure on the country, an example being the attempts to influence the decision of the European Union in 2016. The second reason is internal: it is due to the persistence of traditional thinking in some State institutions, whose policy is not to pay sufficient attention to these reports or respond to their content, and to the local media machine's focus on mobilizing domestic public opinion against human rights organizations, their orientations, their funding, their reports and their lack of neutrality, while the State ignores international public opinion. This prevents any improvement in the image of human rights in Egypt, especially after June 2013, and can also be interpreted as the absence of a real will to change these conditions. This calls for a new strategic vision for dealing with international human rights reports, and for addressing the weak role of the National Council for Human Rights at both the international and national levels. That weakness became clear when 16 Egyptian human rights organizations sent a letter on 9 March 2016 to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the deterioration of human rights in Egypt, covering core issues including (extrajudicial killing - police violence - imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment - freedom of association and freedom of assembly, etc.) and their recommendations to stop the continuing deterioration. At the time we heard nothing from the independent National Council for Human Rights about the credibility of these claims, its plan of action or what had been achieved. Incidentally, we note that the latest Human Rights Watch report also focused on these issues, and we note the absence of any vision or reports from the Human Rights Council on the observations in the Human Rights Watch report concerning torture in prisons and other matters. Its role was limited to two or more members giving their opinion, namely that they had previously offered advice and that Egypt must bear the international consequences of passing the associations law, without any reference whatsoever to the issues raised in the report. A few days later, the Council's president stated that there is no torture in prisons, which made clear that the Council lacks the influential role expected of it. There is also a need to devise mechanisms to follow up coordination between the House of Representatives, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and civil society organizations, in order to coordinate efforts and distribute roles within a clear and transparent framework covering the problems, obstacles, efforts and future action plans for monitoring the development of human rights in Egypt. There is no doubt that we agree on the lack of transparency of these reports, which rely on generalities, build assumptions on unrealistic grounds, draw on reports by national associations that adopt the line of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood against the people of Egypt, contain many contradictions, and are worded in a way that reveals their true intentions in their bias against the State. Nevertheless, there is no alternative to dealing objectively with these reports and examining their observations carefully and thoroughly, since human rights issues are linked to national security, and there must be no complacency in promoting and consolidating them at the national level, nor any neglect in failing to respond to their observations, given the consequences this may have in the future in a changing and conflicted world. It is therefore necessary to take several measures, the most important of which are: First: learning from past lessons, namely the security authorities' taking seriously the same organization's earlier allegations of enforced disappearance, and the State, represented by the Ministry of Interior, announcing the results of the investigation, which revealed that most of the named disappeared persons had traveled to join ISIS, causing the allegation to evaporate and silencing those voices. Second: amending the associations law, while preserving the State's right to exercise its sovereignty over funding and activities in the field of civil work, and easing the restrictions of the associations law by removing duplication, abolishing the one-year prison penalty for changing the premises of an association or foundation without notification within the deadline set by law, and facilitating field research under the supervision of the relevant authorities, so as to benefit from these studies and achieve tangible progress on the ground in this regard with a clear national vision. Third: activating the role of the National Council for Human Rights nationally and internationally, establishing its credibility and strengthening its independence in accordance with the latest legal amendment, while obliging State institutions to cooperate and respond promptly to its requests so that it can carry out its role and announce the facts, the shortcomings and the measures to be taken to remedy them; announcing the results of its assessment of the human rights situation in Egypt as a national reference and making them the benchmark for dealing with international reports; and establishing an observatory of the transformation of human rights in Egypt within the transitional context following the June 2013 Revolution and the 2014 Constitution, while setting a reference for judging international observers' views of human rights progress in Egypt. Finally, we believe it would be appropriate to appoint a special investigating judge to investigate torture complaints and the contents of the report and to announce the results, as this would be the most eloquent response for exposing the credibility of Human Rights Watch and others.