This week, the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) released its 17th annual report covering the period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.

The 50-page report comprises four chapters that review the situation of human rights in Egypt and urge key reforms. It also includes a record of the NCHR’s activities and cooperation with international and regional institutions and civil-society organisations to address complaints and alleged human-rights violations and makes recommendations.

NCHR President Moushira Khattab said the report was the council’s second since the approval of Egypt’s 2014 constitution.

“Let us remember that the constitution was drafted by a committee of 50 experts from both progressive and conservative backgrounds and that as a result it strikes a balance between national legislation and the international human-rights conventions ratified by Egypt,” she said.

She added that the political and economic turmoil that Egypt passed through after the 2013 Revolution had meant that some of the articles on human rights in the 2014 constitution had not been translated into legislation.

 “It was only in 2024 that Egypt’s parliament — the House of Representatives — began reviewing legislation tackling human rights, as well as the draconian Criminal Procedures Law, to bring them into line with the constitution and achieve progressive steps in the area of human rights,” Khattab said.

She described the NCHR report as “balanced”, reflecting recent positive developments on human rights in Egypt while remaining prudent about the challenges of translating constitutional ideals into tangible realities for all.

She said the NCHR was committed to addressing complaints on human-rights matters. These were the lenses through which the state of human rights in Egypt can be evaluated and how far they are respected by the state authorities, she said.

The report offers a detailed account of developments since the launch of Egypt’s National Dialogue by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in April 2022. The National Dialogue’s Board of Trustees released significant recommendations that were subsequently referred to the president, the government, and parliament to be implemented in the form of legislation or executive orders, it says.

These recommendations are classified into primary domains of political, economic, and social.

The report urges the government to adopt the amendments introduced by the National Dialogue to a number of key laws aimed at broadening the scope of political participation, openness, and pluralism in Egypt.

The amendments include changes to laws regulating parliamentary elections, the exercise of political rights, local administration, and political parties, it says. It deplores the fact that political parties in Egypt are weak and do not have significant impacts on public policies.

The NCHR also urged the government and the Press Syndicate to amend press laws in order to support the freedom of speech and expression, bolster the independence of press organisations, and prevent the arrest of journalists for publication offences in line with Article 71 of the constitution.

The report says that the NCHR has received numerous complaints regarding the blocking of certain news websites as well as the detention of journalists on allegations of disseminating false information.

It cites the Press Syndicate as complaining of the arrest of several of its members. The NCHR has received 2,461 complaints, including 19 concerning enforced disappearances, the report says. “The NCHR has communicated with the relevant authorities and received responses to over 60 per cent of these complaints,” it says.

In a press conference held on Sunday, NCHR Vice President Mahmoud Karem praised the release of hundreds of activists, including those serving prison sentences or held in pretrial detention, as evidence of the will to open a new chapter in relations with all the country’s political forces.

He said that many of the complaints monitored by the NCHR during the reporting period had been related to political activists Patrick Zaki and Mohamed Al-Baqer. Karem said the NCHR has submitted requests to the Presidential Pardon Committee for their release.

NCHR board member Mahmoud Bassiouni said that the council has played its role in investigating the case of political activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah through working at all levels with the relevant authorities.

The NCHR had taken note of all medical reports confirming Abdel-Fattah’s stable vital signs, Bassiouni said, adding that the NCHR views Abdel-Fattah not only as a well-known political activist, but also as a citizen fully allowed to exercise all his rights even while in prison.

Bassiouni said that the NCHR has high hopes that under Article 155 of the constitution the Presidential Pardon Committee will expand its operations to settle all cases where individuals have been convicted of freedom of expression-related offences during the period of Egypt’s war against terrorism and radical militant organisations.

The NCHR recommends that the government complete its prison facility development plans and improve coordination among the relevant authorities to ensure more frequent prison inspections.

Meanwhile, the report praised the House of Representatives for launching a process to amend the 75-year-old Criminal Procedures Law. The amendments are crucial to human rights and freedoms, it said, including the right to a free and fair trial before the courts.

“The process of writing a new law compatible with Egypt’s 2014 constitution is a step in the right direction,” said the report, adding that “it also paves the way to a review of other key laws, such as those in the Penal Code and the Personal Status law.”

The report said the lifting of the state of emergency in Egypt along with the subsequent abrogation of exceptional legal measures has had a positive impact on improving human rights.

Nevertheless, it added, there remains an urgent need to expedite legislative reforms promoting human rights and freedoms.

It said that the NCHR emphasises the importance of aligning the definition of “torture” in Egyptian legislation with the definition outlined in the UN Convention against Torture (CAT).

A key recommendation includes revisiting the definition of terrorism in both the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Law on the Regulation of Lists of Terrorist-Designated Entities to ensure that counter-terrorism legislation is not used to infringe upon personal freedoms and to adhere to legal restrictions on the duration of pretrial detention, it said.

The report notes that the period it covers was marked by regional instability, primarily driven by the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza, which involves the perpetration of flagrant war crimes and continues to adversely impact the region’s political and economic landscape.

The wars in the region, it says, have created an economic crisis that has had a substantial adverse impact on economic and social rights.

This has resulted in escalating inflation rates and a concomitant increase in the cost of living for millions of citizens. As a result, the NCHR urged the government to implement more effective poverty alleviation programmes and to continue the national Hayah Karima initiative aimed at developing rural areas.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly