Joint Letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel Re: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's Visit to Berlin

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June 1, 2015

Dr. Angela Merkel

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

Willy-Brandt-Straße 1

10557 Berlin

Dear Chancellor Merkel,

We, the undersigned international human rightsorganizations, write to you in advance of your scheduled meeting with PresidentAbdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt. The government headed by President al-Sisipresides over the gravest human rights crisis Egypt in decades. We urge you inthe strongest terms to make clear in your meetings with President al-Sisi, andin public remarks you or other German officials may make in connection withthis visit, that the nature and extent of Germany’s relations with Egypt goingforward will depend on the Egyptian authorities taking prompt and concretemeasures to put an end to government policies that systematically violateEgypt’s obligations under international human rights law as well as theEgyptian Constitution of 2014.

Since July 2013, when then-Defense Minister al-Sisiousted the elected president Mohamed Morsi and his government, authorities haveby their own admission detained more than 22,000 people. Egyptian rightsorganizations have credibly documented a much higher number of at least 41,000persons who were arrested, indicted or sentenced between July 2013 and May 2014,including 300 lawyers. Many have been detained solely on the basis of allegedmembership in or sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood, with which PresidentMorsy was affiliated. Hundreds of others have been arrested for participatingin peaceful demonstrations, in violation of the repressive November 2013 assemblylaw outlawing gatherings of 10 or more persons not approved in advance by theInterior Ministry. Those detained for violating the assembly law include someof Egypt’s leading pro-democracy activists and a number of human rightsdefenders.

In one case, which the Euro-Mediterranean Human RightsNetwork raised with you in a letter of 2 April 2015, a leading women’s rightslawyer, Azza Soliman, was charged with 16 others for participating in anillegal protest after they came forward as witnesses to the fatal police shootingof political activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh. A judge acquitted Soliman and the 16members of al-Sabbagh’s Socialist Popular Alliance Party on May 23, but prosecutorshave appealed the acquittal and continue to seek to jail peaceful activists.

President al-Sisi and other officials frequentlycharacterize dissent as a threat to national security. Egypt’s judges andprosecutors have contributed to a further politicization of the criminal justicesystem that has resulted in mass trials in which a judge sentences hundreds of peopleto death without any regard for individual criminal responsibility. In separatedecisions on May 16, a criminal court recommended the death penalty for 122 people,including former President Morsy, noted academic Dr. Emad Shahin, and half adozen top Muslim Brotherhood officials. The sheer number of people condemned todeath in these rulings is emblematic of a much larger problem of lack of respectfor international fair trial standards in proceedings involving politicaldissidents. Between January and March 2015, Egyptian courts convicted 2,381political dissidents, sentencing 194 of them to death and 312 to life inprison, according to the Egyptian Observatory for Rights and Freedoms. SinceMorsy’s removal in July 2013, Amnesty International research indicates that courtshave issued more than 742 death sentences after unfair trials and targetingMuslim Brotherhood members and their supporters. The authorities have shown awillingness to carry out executions more rapidly than in the past, and haveexecuted 27 persons since June 2014. Seven out of the 27 were convicted ofmurder in relation to political violence and were executed following grosslyunfair trials that violated international fair trial standards.

Another key area of concern is the Egyptiangovernment’s efforts to restrict the legitimate activities of independentnon-governmental organizations (NGOs), including human rights organizations, whichcriticize government policies. The 2002 Law on Associations currently in forceallows the government to shut down such organizations at will, freeze theirassets, confiscate property, reject persons nominated to their governingboards, and block foreign funding. Authorities frequently deny the applicationsof groups seeking to register under the law, which mandates prison terms formembers of those groups for what then become “unauthorized activities.” The Ministry of Social Solidarity, which isresponsible for implementing the 2002 law, relies heavily on the InteriorMinistry’s Homeland Security (formerly State Security investigations) bureau tomonitor the activities and funding of human rights and other civil societyorganizations.

In September, President al-Sisi amended by decree the PenalCode to raise the penalty for accepting foreign funding with intent to “harmthe national interest” to life in prison and a US$70,000 fine. In November2014, Egyptian authorities threatened to close down any organizationsconducting NGO-type activities while registered as a law firm or civil company,as many are to avoid the 2002 law’s onerous restrictions. In the face of broadcriticism from many countries as well as international organizations and UnitedNations rights bodies, the government refrained from implementing this threatbut has continued more quietly to intimidate and harass individuals and theirorganizations with travel bans, investigations, and denial of permits forpublic events. This comes on top of the closure of offices of internationalorganizations that support Egyptian groups, including the Konrad AdenauerStiftung, and criminal prosecution of their staff. These threats have led severalof Egypt’s most prominent NGOs to shut down key programs for fear of running afoulof the law and relocate some of their programs abroad.

Egyptian authorities have taken no evident action toimprove fatal conditions in badly overcrowded prisons, police stations and securitydirectorates beyond occasional apparently superficial inspections byprosecutors. The authorities have also undertaken no steps to investigate orend detention in unofficial places of detention, like the premises of theNational Security Agency, where torture and ill-treatment are routine. HumanRights Watch and Amnesty International documented the deadly consequences of theseovercrowded conditions and the lack of proper medical care in such facilities. Atleast 124 detainees have died in police custody since August 2013 as a resultof medical negligence or torture and other forms of ill-treatment, according tohuman rights groups including three former Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarians.

Women continue to face discriminationin law and in practice, including high levels of gender-based domestic, publicand state violence. A June 2014 amendment to the penal code to combat sexualharassment requires further improvement and incidents of sexual harassment areongoing. Assaults by mobs of men against women in Tahrir Square during Presidental-Sisi’s inauguration spurred his administration to promise action to combatviolence against women, but promised additional measures have not yet materialized.The authorities have not taken serious measures to bring perpetrators ofviolence against women to justice, especially when they are from the securityforces.

Finally, Germany should continue to freeze thetransfer of all arms and security related items that could be used forrepression until Egyptian authorities have carried out judicial and impartialinvestigations into the killings of hundreds of protesters by police andsecurity forces, and bring those responsible to justice. This includes theinfamous and bloody August 14, 2013, clearing of two largely peaceful sit-ins inCairo organized by opponents of the military takeover, in which security forceskilled more than 1,000 protesters in a single day.

We encourage you to make clear to President al-Sisithat closer German ties with Egypt depend on his government’s taking steps toaddress these concerns. Specifically, we ask you to urge President al-Sisi tocommit to the following steps:

· Repeal the November 2013 law (Law107/2013) severely restricting the right to peaceful assembly or amend it tobring it in line with international human rights law and standards and releaseimmediately and unconditionally those jailed solely for peacefully exercisingtheir right to freedom of expression and assembly;

· Release or retry before civilian courts whose proceedings meetinternational fair trial standards those sentenced in mass trials or thosejailed solely for their alleged membership in or sympathy with the MuslimBrotherhood;

· Establish a moratorium on executions with the view of abolishing thedeath penalty;

· Refrain from forcing NGOs to comply with the 2002 Law on Associationsuntil an elected parliament passes a new law respectful of international humanrights standards after dialogue with relevant stakeholders;

· Put in place effective measures to end sexual and gender-based violencein private and public spheres, as well as by the state, in consultation withindependent women’s rights groups;

· Ensure that all places of detention, including police stations andunofficial places of detention are under judicial oversight comply withinternational standards including the UN Convention against Torture, to whichEgypt is party, and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment ofPrisoners

Thank you for your attention to these importantconcerns.

Sincerely,

Selmin Çalışkan,Secretary General, Amnesty International Germany

Wenzel Michalski, Germany Director, Human Rights Watch

Mary Lawlor, Executive Director, Front Line Defenders

Gerald Staberock, Secretary General, OMCT

Michel Tubiana, President, Euro-Mediterranean HumanRights Network