Death threats against CIHRS Director Bahey el-Din Hassan: European States and US must take measures to protect Egyptian human rights defenders, both home and abroad

The undersigned civil society organisations expresstheir outrage at the latest death threats targeting the Director of CairoInstitute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Bahey el-Din Hassan, asa result of his human rights work on Egypt in Europe and the US. On 21 March2018, in reaction to a memo sent by seven Egyptian independent human rightsgroups, including CIHRS, to the UN Secretary-General regarding the presidentialelections in Egypt, a TV show host called on the Egyptian authorities to"deal with him [Bahey el-Din Hassan] the same way the Russian spy wasdealt with,"[1] in reference to the nerve agent attack on Serjei Skripal in the UnitedKingdom.

Given the gravity of these threats against Baheyel-Din Hassan, the undersigned organisations call on the EuropeanStates and the United States to (1) take all necessary measures to protectEgyptian human rights defenders (HRDs), both home and abroad, and (2) to urgethe Egyptian authorities to carry out immediate, thorough and impartialinvestigations on these threats. HRDs should be able to engage withregional and international human rights systems without fear for their lives.Support for HRDs is a stated priority of EU, Swiss, Norwegian and US foreignpolicies, and lies at the heart of the 1998 UN Declaration on HRDs.

CIHRS is an indispensable and internationallyrecognised organisation, which has been a champion of human rights across theMiddle East and North Africa for over 20 years.

These events not only constitute the latest example ofthe harassment that Mr Hassan has faced in the last years, which forced himinto exile in 2014 following the election of President el-Sisi, but alsorepresent an extremely worrying pattern of reprisals against HRDs in Egypt andmany other parts of the world.

While pro-democracy activists in Egypt are beingjailed for expressing their views on social media, these repeated and seriousincitements on television calling to inflict physical harm against Bahey el-DinHassan as well as other HRDs have not been adequately addressed by the Egyptianauthorities. Amidst an unprecedented crackdown on human rights and civilsociety, together with a soon-to-be implemented draconian NGO law, the Egyptianauthorities appear determined to silence HRDs by any means, includinginstructing security services and State-sponsored media to intimidate them inEgypt and abroad.

Egyptian NGOs already witnessed this kind of harassment during a human rightsworkshop in Rome in May 2017, when two persons pretending to be Egyptianjournalists intimidated and took pictures of the Egyptian participants.Subsequently, a smear campaign was launched in Egypt where Moustafa Bakry, apolitical figure closely associated to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and amember of the pro-Sisi parliamentary bloc, stated on his TV show that theEgyptian security agencies should "kidnap" Egyptian human rightsdefenders, including Bahey el-Din Hassan, from Europe and bring them back toEgypt "in coffins",[2] reminding them thatthis had been done in the past.

AboutBahey el-Din Hassan

Bahey el-Din Hassan is a journalist, he has publishedarticles in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is a leadinginitiator of the human rights movement in Egypt and the Arab region, directorand co-founder of CIHRS, and a member of the boards and advisory committees ofseveral international human rights organisations, including the EuroMediterranean Foundation of Support to Human Rights Defenders (EMHRF), HumanRights Watch (HRW) Middle East and North Africa Division, and the InternationalCenter for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Hassan is also one of the foundingmembers of EMHRF and EuroMed Rights.

Signatories:

1. Americans for Democracy and Human Rights inBahrain (ADHRB)

2. Asian Forum For Human Rights and Development(FORUM-ASIA)

3. Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC)

4. Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia(AHRE)

5. Caucasus Civil Initiatives Center (CCIC)

6. Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)- Argentina

7. CIVICUS - World Alliance for CitizenParticipation

8. Conectas

9. DefendDefenders (East and Horn of AfricaHuman Rights Defenders Project)

10. EuroMed Rights

11. FIDH, within the framework of the Observatoryfor the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

12. Front Line Defenders

13. Human Rights First

14. Human Rights Watch

15. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

16. JOINT Liga de ONGs em Mozambique

17. Karapatan (Philippines)

18. Odhikar (Bangladesh)

19. Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

20. Reporters Without Borders

21. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

22. The Working Group on Egypt (USA)

23. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT),within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human RightsDefenders

[1] Link to the video (inArabic) https://youtu.be/gZE8zCePfqw

[2] Link to the TV show (in Arabic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirJclgosPs (min 34)