Hossam Bahgat, Executive Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) delivered an oral intervention today before the UN Human Rights Council at the session held to adopt the final report of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Egypt's human rights record. The statement was delivered on behalf of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) EIPR, its member in Egypt.

Below is the text of the speech, which can be viewed in this video:

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Thank you Mr. President, Distinguished Members of the Council

Most Egyptians would love to move to the country described in the Egyptian government's national UPR report and its response to recommendations. The government describes an alternative reality, with guarantees for freedoms of association and assembly,  protections for human rights defenders, and freedom of expression in both the digital and traditional spheres. 

43 of your recommendations are claimed to have been “already implemented” in Egypt, where discrimination and violence against women are criminalized, including domestic violence and marital rape; where the death penalty is limited to the most serious of crimes; where torture incidents are investigated and punished; and where the national human rights institution is independent. 

Most audacious is the claim that Egypt has no political prisoners, a mistruth contradicted even by the government's own repeated citations of the president's decision, in 2022, to appoint a pardon committee to work specifically on the tens of thousands of Egyptians detained on political charges. 

We thank members of this council for their recommendations that touch upon most aspects of the unfolding rights crisis in Egypt, even if many of those recommendations were too broad to prescribe concrete steps. 

It is now imperative for the government to turn this false rhetoric into genuine action, by taking urgent steps to end its gross, systemic and widespread abuses, affecting most sectors of Egyptian society. 

I Thank you.