The impunity of the Egyptian regime, Europe’s “indispensable” partner in fighting illegal migration and counter-terrorism measures, continues to shock and brutalize. Europe’s partner uses the privileges of this partnership beyond pleasing its European allies and sometimes against them. Cairo has been instrumentalizing these issues to clamp down on critics and human rights defenders. Its approaches to this partnership’s two central concerns, eradicating terrorism and fighting illegal migration, are unavoidably unsustainable and problematic.
Based on a request from European officials in Cairo, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), one of the last standing human rights organizations and a important site for knowledge production and victim support in Egypt, held a meeting earlier this November to discuss “human rights issues as well as ways of supporting the enhancement of human rights in Egypt and globally.” The meeting, which was publicized by EIPR, included 9 European ambassadors to Egypt, including Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK’s deputy ambassador and diplomatic representatives from Canada, Sweden, and Norway.
The time has come for Egypt’s European and western allies to reconsider their support for it
In what has become a typical, albeit still harrowing, response, the Egyptian regime reacted swiftly and aggressively, despite the foreign diplomatic presence. It arrested EIPR’s Executive Director, Gasser Abdel Razek, the Director of Criminal Justice Unit, Karim Ennarah, and EIPR’s Administrative Manager, Mohammed Basheer.
