Egypt frees three human-rights activists from prison

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Egypt’s beleaguered human-rights movement received a rare dose of good news on Thursday as the government unexpectedly freed three activists who had been detained on trumped-up terrorism charges. The climbdown prompted calls for Canada and other governments to press the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to end its prolonged crackdown on critical voices in the country.

The release of the three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) came after an extended international outcry over their Nov. 19 arrests. Hollywood stars as well as the incoming administration of U.S. president-elect Joe Biden adopted their cause.

The activists were detained – and accused of belonging to an unnamed terrorist organization – shortly after meeting with 13 foreign diplomats representing Canada and several European countries. The EIPR staff briefed the diplomats about repression carried out by Mr. al-Sisi’s security forces, including a recent spate of mass trials and executions.

International human-rights groups say the trio’s sudden release from Cairo’s notorious Tora Prison is proof that outside pressure can influence Mr. al-Sisi’s regime – while at the same time highlighting how rarely that pressure is brought to bear on a dictator who has harshly crushed all dissent over the past seven years.

Canada, in particular, has been named as one of Mr. al-Sisi’s “enablers.” Despite the presence of Canada’s chargé d’affaires, Jasmine Wahhab, at the fateful Nov. 3 meeting at the EIPR’s Cairo office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government made only a single statement on Twitter about the case during the 15 days the three activists were in jail.

“We urge Egyptian authorities to uphold fundamental freedoms of expression and belief as well as human rights. Human rights defenders must be allowed to work without fear of arrest or reprisals,” Global Affairs Canada posted on its Twitter channel on Nov. 20.

But human-rights activists noted that the ministry’s website had no matching statement, and that neither Mr. Trudeau nor Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne retweeted the Global Affairs post. (A 2018 retweet by Mr. Champagne’s predecessor, Chrystia Freeland, of a Global Affairs statement calling for the release of two jailed Saudi human-rights activists led to a downward spiral in relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia.)

“What put [the EIPR activists] at risk was the fact that they met with these 13 Western diplomats,” said Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada. “Because they put them at risk, [the countries that met with the activists] had a responsibility.” Ms. Nivyabandi said that while Canadian officials told her they privately lobbied for the release of the EIPR activists, public pressure has often worked best with regimes such as that of Mr. al-Sisi. “I think Canada could have done more,” she said.

Asked by The Globe and Mail whether Mr. Trudeau or Mr. Champagne had raised the case with their Egyptian counterparts, Angela Savard, a spokeswoman for Global Affairs, said on Friday that the government “discussed this case bilaterally on multiple occasions with Egyptian authorities.” She said the interventions occurred at the ambassadorial level.

Some activists accused Canada of putting economic interests ahead of human rights in its dealings with Egypt. On Nov. 19, the day the activists were jailed, Egypt announced that four Canadian companies, including the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., had been awarded concessions to mine for mineral resources in the country.

“Egypt definitely is getting treated with kid gloves by countries like Canada and the U.S. and countries in Europe, despite the deteriorating situation,” said Amr Magdi, Middle East researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “We’re now in the seventh year of a very, very brutal crackdown, and we see these countries continuing business as usual with Sisi. … These foreign governments are enablers.”

Thursday’s release of the three EIPR activists – Gasser Abdel Razek, Karim Ennarah and Mohamed Basheer – was seen by some observers as an effort by Mr. al-Sisi to gain favour with Mr. Biden. The president-elect is expected to take a tougher line toward authoritarian leaders than President Donald Trump, who paid little attention to human-rights issues, and once labelled Mr. al-Sisi “my favourite dictator.”

Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made no comment on the detention of the three activists. Mr. Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, signalled the different priorities of the incoming administration when he tweeted his concern the day after the arrests. “Meeting with foreign diplomats is not a crime. Nor is peacefully advocating for human rights,” he wrote.

Mr. Blinken was not even the most prominent name to embrace the cause of the three activists. During their 15-day incarceration, actors including Scarlett Johansson and Emma Thompson made YouTube video statements calling for the charges against the three men, which Ms. Johansson labelled “bogus,” to be dropped.

But while activists were relieved to see the trio released, they cautioned that Mr. al-Sisi’s crackdown goes on. Patrick Zaki, the EIPR’s gender and sexual rights researcher, has since February been in prison, where he has reportedly been tortured. The organization also faces a Dec. 6 court hearing that could freeze its assets.

The fate of the EIPR has taken on added importance in Egypt since Mr. al-Sisi’s regime – which has jailed more than 60,000 political prisoners – crushed all political opposition and independent media after the 2013 military coup he led.

“Sisi has obliterated any political space, so human-rights organizations are really the only remaining critical voices in the country,” said Mr. Magdi of Human Rights Watch. The release of the three activists, he said, was a momentary flash of light on a dark landscape.

“We’re just back to square one, where the situation is very, very dangerous. Those brave defenders remaining on the ground could be arrested at any moment.”

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