The 28th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, May 3 each year, marks the first anniversary of the Egyptian authorities’ massive campaign to block press and media websites, which reached 98 blocked sites, according to the latest survey by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE).
Programs: Civil Liberties
The EIPR found that from September 28, 2016, when the church construction law was issued, to April 2018, state institutions have shuttered 14 existing churches that were hosting religious services prior to the closure orders. Four of these churches were closed this year, with Copts denied access to them and prayer services in them prohibited.
17 Mar 2018
It has been one year since Coptic citizens were displaced from Arish amid violent attacks that targeted many inside their homes. In this report the EIPR documents the living conditions of displaced Copts, looking at any assistance offered by state institutions and whether any genuine measures have been taken to realize justice and provide restitution to these citizens.
A year after the displacement, the security situation remains unstable and Christians are not afforded a minimum level of protection. The displaced families are therefore unable to return to Arish, and in some cases people who decided to return were targeted and killed by masked men.
The undersigned organizations strongly condemn Cairo University intransigence in renewing the 2018-2019 sabbatical of the assistant professor at Faculty of Arts at Cairo University, Kholoud Saber and ceasing the payment of her due salary since October 2017. The signatories demand from Cairo University the halt of such unlawful procedures, especially since they are induced by state security interventions in academic institutions and work.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights is deeply concerned about the judgment issued yesterday by the Atfih Misdemeanor Court in the Giza governorate in case no.
3 Dec 2017
Introduction
On September 28, 2016, Law 80/2016 was adopted to regulate the construction and renovation of churches and their annexes. State officials, parliamentarians, and some sectors of the Christian ecclesiastical leadership heralded the new law as a solution to the long-standing difficulties of building or renovating churches.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights released a report today titled “The Trap: Punishing Sexual Difference in Egypt.” The report documents and analyses the increasingly frequent incidents, over the last four years, in which police have specifically targeted persons whose sexual orientation or gender identity does not conform to socially-sanctioned norms, specifically gay people or men who have sex with men, or those who are perceived as such, as well as transgender people.
22 Nov 2017
This report follows the journey of some of those arrested, from entrapment to imprisonment, in order to analyse the patterns of this security campaign against those considered to have non-normative sexualities. The report also analyses the roles of different actors in the criminal justice system, including the police, prosecution and Courts of Appeal, as well as the legal loopholes employed by this campaign and the way in which it violates a number of established legal and constitutional principles.
The study includes an analytical section and two annexes. The analysis reviews statutes regulating church construction, significant court rulings of relevance, and their impact on the legal status of existing churches and various official licenses. The study then looks at the types and frequency of sectarian attacks linked with the exercise of the right of worship, offering a quantitative analysis of the 74 sectarian attacks seen in Egypt from January 25, 2011 to August 2016. It describes the flashpoints of tension, the profile of attacks and their relationship to political parties or governing forces, and whether patterns changed in tandem with changes in regime.
