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Fourteen Egyptian human rights groups today expressed their full support of the statement issued by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights which condemned the Egyptian security forces for killing up to 60 migrants on the Egyptian side of the borders with Israeli since mid 2007
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(8 March, 2010 – Geneva) Egypt’s use of the Emergency Law to justify arbitrary detention and the use of exceptional courts was examined before the UN Human Rights Council today in a ground-breaking report presented by Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. The report is the first issued by the main human rights body of the United Nations that deals exclusively with the human rights situation in Egypt. Representatives from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies attended the session in Geneva as observers and delivered oral interventions in which they supported the report’s recommendations and urged the government to implement them immediately.
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The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has granted a human rights award to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies “in appreciation of its distinguished, ongoing efforts in the field of human rights and its defense of freedom of expression,” the library said. The award includes a shield named for the late Dr. Adel Abu Zahra, a prominent civil society pioneer, and a monetary prize. Dr. Ismail Serag Eldin, the director of the library, will present the award later today to the Institute’s program coordinator, Samy Saad.
The CIHRS was awarded the French Republic Award for Human Rights in 2007.
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On Friday (19 February, 2010) as part of its review before the UN Human Rights Council, Egypt stood before governments from around the world and either rejected or failed to commit to important human rights reforms.
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Press Release: Egypt’s human rights record was reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Council yesterday (17 February 2010). Egyptian human rights NGOs welcomed the inclusion of serious rights concerns and substantive recommendations to curb systemic abuses, including many that were presented by an independent NGO Coalition, were presented to the government by a number of states. Unfortunate, however, the Egyptian government failed to engage constructively with the review and instead chose to justify or deny human rights abuses. The government presented false information to the Council on issues such as the State of Emergency, issues of due process, and discrimination based on religion or belief.
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I. Civil and political rights
A. Constitutional reform
Egypt needs a new constitution, or at least a fundamental reform of the 1971 constitution, which constitutes the primary source of the chronic institutional and structural illnesses that plague human rights observance in Egypt, largely because it gives the executive authority absolute power over the legislature and judiciary and grants the president of the republic unlimited authority subject to no oversight or external review.
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The problem is not a cultural one but a lack of political will
The Coalition of Egyptian human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs), made up of independent Egyptian NGOs, regrets to state that the report submitted by the Egyptian government for the UN Universal Periodic Review does not reflect a serious desire to engage in a constructive dialogue designed to improve human rights in Egypt, which is the ultimate objective of the UPR mechanism. The report avoids addressing the real issues that have contributed to the deteriorating status of human rights compliance in Egypt, as documented previously by Egyptian and international human rights organizations, as well as by various UN agencies and special rapporteurs.
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The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies urged the Egyptian government to address several pressing issues in its report to the UN review committee on economic, social, and cultural rights, most prominently the repeated assaults on the property of Egyptian Copts in the framework of sectarian violence, the latest round of which took place recently in Naga Hamadi, as well as the right of Nubians to return to their places of origin and build homes there in respect of their cultural heritage, and the right of Bedouins in the Sinai to own land and enjoy safety from security harassment.
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The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies hosted a meeting earlier this morning where Independent NGOs from the Egyptian Human Rights Forum discussed possible ways to prepare for Egypt's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) with representatives of 15 Countries. Egypt's UPR is scheduled to take place at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on the 17th of February 2010.
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A general observation, in addition to monitoring report published by competent organizations, including Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), revealed that the Egyptian mass media, either broadcast, visual or printed media, have repeatedly covered public elections in a manner that usually lacked many of the professional traditions. The media was sometimes biased either for or against specific candidates in accordance with the attitude of the tool used for communication, whether a journal, broadcast station, or TV channel, and whether government controlled, partisan or private, vis-à-vis the party the candidate belongs to or the candidate himself.
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