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News Update
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Egypt: Spate of Free Speech Prosecutions
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Freedom of Expression Under Relentless Attack
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BEIRUT, Lebanon, August 30, 2024/ — The Egyptian authorities have in recent weeks arbitrarily detained and referred for prosecution at least four critics of the government on charges stemming solely from their legitimate exercise of freedom of expression, as part of their work, in a fresh assault on freedom of expression, eight organizations, including Human Rights Watch, said today. Those prosecuted include two detained journalists and a researcher living in exile.
The authorities have employed incommunicado detention, abusive pretrial detention, and unsubstantiated terrorism-related charges against the critics. The family of one detainee alleged that he was tortured. Harsh repression has stymied freedom of expression and independent media in recent years, despite the government’s claims that it is pursuing reforms. “Egypt cannot turn a new page without respecting freedom of expression, which is part and parcel of promoting other political and economic rights,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt should urgently cease targeting critics and immediately release those unjustly detained.” Authorities detained Ashraf Omar, a political satire artist, on July 22, 2024. Al-Manassa, an independent news site where Omar publishes cartoons, and his family said that security forces belonging to the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency (NSA) arrested him during a late-night home raid. Omar’s wife, Nada Moogheeth, said in public statements that CCTV video showed a group of people in civilian clothes and others in police uniforms arriving in two minibuses, raiding the house, and leaving with Omar blindfolded 40 minutes later. They then took him to an undisclosed location where he was held for more than 48 hours. Omar’s wife later declared that NSA officers had tortured him, including by threatening to subject him to electric shocks. On July 24, security officials brought Omar to the Supreme State Security Prosecutors Office in Cairo, a branch of Egypt’s public prosecution known for its abuses and responsible for keeping thousands of peaceful activists and journalists in pretrial detention for months or years without evidence of wrongdoing. Omar’s lawyer and prominent human rights defender Khaled Ali said that prosecutors ordered Omar detained on charges of “joining a terrorist group,” “misusing social media,” and “spreading false news,” charges that the prosecution frequently uses to lock up actual or perceived critics. On July 16, security forces raided the home of journalist Khaled Mamdouh in Cairo and arrested him late at night. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an independent organization, said members of the security forces searched Mamdouh’s apartment and seized his electronic devices without revealing their identity or presenting a judicial warrant. Mamdouh’s lawyer, Fatma Serag, said authorities kept Mamdouh in secret detention for five days and then presented him to the prosecutors on July 20, recording the official date of his arrest on that same day. She said in an August 8 news conference that the home raid was “terrifying” and that security forces surrounded Mamdouh’s apartment for six hours and briefly detained his son. The prosecution has kept Mamdouh in pretrial detention since July 20. His lawyer said prosecutors have not presented any evidence of criminal wrongdoing but charged Mamdouh with belonging to an unnamed “terrorist group” and “spreading false news.” Serag said Mamdouh is being held in Abu Za’abal prison, where prosecutorial hearings for pretrial detention renewal are conducted through a video conference system. Human Rights Watch documented that this abusive method of renewing pretrial detention – without bringing the detainee before a judge – severely undermines due process. It prevents a judge from assessing the legality and conditions of detention as well as the detainees’ wellbeing, and violates several fair trial guarantees, including the right to legal counsel. Human Rights Watch spoke to a third journalist, who previously worked with Mamdouh for the Arabic Post, who said he fled the country in the last week of July for fear of arrest after Omar and Mamdouh were detained. He said security forces were looking for him and raided his home after he fled. The journalist had already been arbitrarily detained in 2018 for over two years in a case stemming from his legitimate work as a journalist. In early July, the prosecution referred Abdelrahman Mahmoud Abdou, a researcher and journalist also known as Abdelrahman Ayyash, to trial. The indictment states that Ayyash was charged, alongside four others, with “leadership of a terrorist group,” while 41 others were charged with joining or financing the unnamed group. Ayyash, who is living in exile, said human rights lawyers obtained the case file and notified him, but that he has not received formal notice of the charges. The indictment describes Ayyash as a “supervisor” at the Arabic Post even though he said he quit his job there in 2018. Ayyash was employed as a senior research assistant at Human Rights Watch between August 2018 and September 2021. After leaving Human Rights Watch, Ayyash joined the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Initiative, and he currently serves as an independent consultant for the Middle East Democracy Center. Ayyash has also contributed to publications at several organizations, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Century International, and the Arab Reform Initiative. Security forces previously raided Ayyash’s family home in July 2022 and detained his father, after questioning him about Ayyash’s human rights and political activism. His father was referred to trial on unsubstantiated charges of possessing printed materials and information undermining the constitution, and was detained for several months. A court acquitted him in November 2022. On July 16, the Interior Ministry stated it had detained a man it claimed was responsible for displaying criticism of President al-Sisi on a billboard screen in Giza, which went viral on social media. Such criticism is protected peaceful free expression that should not be penalized, the organizations said. Under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, freedom of expression, including media freedom, has faced relentless attacks Egypt is a state party to international instruments guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 19) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (article 9). “Attacks on freedom of expression in Egypt must end,” said Said Benarbia, Middle East and North Africa director at the International Commission of Jurists. “Instead of muzzling independent, critical, and dissenting voices through arbitrary detentions and prosecutions, the Egyptian authorities must ensure that all individuals are able to participate in public debate and openly express their opinions and criticism of State institutions and officials without intimidation or reprisal.” Signatories:
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
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What can PR learn from the public sector’s approach to equality?
Ruby Kite, talent and inclusion lead at The PHA Group
Public relations and comms agencies, among most other private sector companies, take pride in adopting ways of working that benefit clients, customers and employees.
Meanwhile, public sector organisations are considered bound by bureaucracy, which contrasts with the fast-paced world that is agency life.
Its entirely possible that red rape restricts progress, but perhaps the private sector should look to implement some of the government-enforced measures that positively impact those from underrepresented or disadvantaged groups?
Avoid ticking a box
With equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives at risk of being a box-ticking exercises, agencies should consider equality impact assessments (EIA) as a blueprint for change, following in the footsteps of their public sector counterparts.
An EIA is a systematic process used to evaluate the effects of policies, procedures, or practices on different groups of people, ensuring that no group is disproportionately disadvantaged. They are widely adopted across the public sector as a way of facilitating and evidencing compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, part of the Equality Act 2010.
The process typically involves:
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Identifying purpose and objectives
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Gathering and analysing relevant data to assess its potential impact on various social identity groups
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Consulting with stakeholders to gather insights and feedback
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Developing strategies to mitigate identified negative effects
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Continuous monitoring and reviewing to ensure ongoing fairness and inclusivity.
To ensure practising what you preach, PR and comms agencies should consider the breadth of policies, processes, and practices that could benefit from implementing EIAs, or a comparable methodology. For example, by prioritising data collection and analysis, they could better evaluate the impact of their campaigns on their target demographic, rather than relying on an inflated figure indicating potential reach via the media. A more proactive approach could be to make data-driven decisions during the campaign planning process rather than wait until it has already hit the press.
Benefit from improved EDI
Many well-known consumer brands make PR blunders and face backlash from members of the impacted audience and their allies, so agencies would benefit from using relevant insights to help mitigate any potentially harmful messaging. The same could also be carried out internally through employee surveys, anonymous feedback options, employee resource groups forums, and stay and exit interviews, to name a few.
Questions to consider are:
- Does your new hybrid working policy impact full-time and part-time employees equitably?
- Is the number of employees affected by redundancies fair across all social identity groups, bearing in mind their representation across the agency?
- Can all employees benefit from salary benchmarking and bonus awards equally?
For agencies with plenty of room for improvement that don’t know where to start, it’s worth a reminder of the nine protected characteristics that should be the focus of EIAs:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that these traits do not take into account other factors that agency leaders may wish to consider, such as socio-economic background, caregiver status, education, neurodivergence, cultural background, and immigration status.
With pressure mounting for agencies to create and maintain truly diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments for its employees, while ensuring the client work is also reflective of its ED&I-related values, it can be a challenge for leaders to continuously improve their agency’s policies and practices for the benefit of both. EIAs provide a structured template to reduce the risk of underrepresented being disproportionately disadvantaged.
Written by
Ruby Kite, talent and inclusion lead at The PHA Group
