VZCZCXRO1693
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #7109/01 3451258
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 111258Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2879
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 007109 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR WATERS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KDEM KIRF EG
SUBJECT: EGYPT:  HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES UPDATE 
 
REF: A. CAIRO 6953 
     ¶B. CAIRO 6171 
     ¶C. CAIRO 5709 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect accordingly. 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  International Human Rights Day passed with little 
notice in Egypt, but human rights continue to generate public 
debate and controversy.  Government progress on some human 
rights issues has been notable, but civil society critics of 
the GOE--bolstered by an increasingly assertive media--charge 
that the key GOE power brokers, particularly the Ministry of 
Interior, remain uncommitted to implementing a comprehensive 
program to protect and expand human rights.  This message 
highlights GOE progress on human rights as well as a number 
of current human rights issues that are generating public 
debate and discussion.  End summary. 
 
---------------------- 
Notable Progress: NCHR 
---------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  The GOE's most significant human rights 
achievement in recent years has been the creation of the 
National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), formally 
established in 2003 and made operational in 2004.  NCHR 
issued annual reports on the state of human rights in Egypt 
in 2005 and again in 2006.  In addition, NCHR has issued a 
variety of studies keyed to particular issues, including the 
2005 presidential and parliamentary elections.  Most 
recently, NCHR has conducted public seminars on a number of 
controversial current issues including civil rights for 
Baha'is, the GOE's regulation of NGOs, and constitutional 
amendments. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  NCHR reports have tended to occupy a middle ground 
between the sometimes strident reporting of the professional 
human rights community and the reflexive apologetics that 
often characterize GOE reaction to charges of human rights 
abuses.  Although many human rights activists have 
characterized NCHR reporting as "watered down" and calculated 
to minimize offense to the GOE, other observers suggest that 
GOE discomfort with some of the more critical NCHR reporting 
will lead to a major turn-over on the NCHR board in early 
2007, when the three-year term of the board's original 
members expires.  The press has speculated that NCHR 
president Boutros Boutros-Ghali (the former UNSYG, who now 
spends most of his time in Paris) and NCHR Vice President 
Kamal Aboul Magd will be replaced by personages less likely 
to criticize the GOE, such as long-time presidential advisor 
Osama El-Baz. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
GOE's Human Rights Training for Police, Prosecutors 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Working with the UNDP, and supported by the EU and 
the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA), the GOE has continued 
to provide human rights training for thousands of judicial 
and law enforcement officials.  The current phase of the 
project, running 2006-2009, aims to train 1200 judges, 700 
prosecutors, 3000 police officers, 1800 media figures, and 
750 lawyers "to familiarize Egyptians ... with international 
standards of human rights ... as well as Egypt's treaty 
commitments." 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Speaking to reporters ahead of International Human 
Rights Day, Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit said, "Egypt firmly 
believes in the importance of protecting human rights and 
civil liberties worldwide."  He placed particular emphasis on 
Egypt's support for human rights in international fora, 
including the new U.N. Human Rights Council, and within the 
African Union, including the Egypt's role in drafting the 
African Human Rights Charter.  According to Aboul Gheit, 
Egypt's National Councils (for Human Rights, Women, and 
Motherhood and Childhood) have played a significant role in 
strengthening human rights in Egypt.  Finally, he warned 
against the application of "selectivity and double standards" 
in human rights matters. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
Concerns About Bloggers, Baha'is, and Police Brutality 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Notwithstanding these positive developments, 
 
CAIRO 00007109  002 OF 003 
 
 
recent months have witnessed several human rights problems 
that have led critics to question the GOE's commitment to 
addressing outstanding human rights problems.  For example, 
Alexandria blogger Abdel Karim Amer, whose blog entries have 
contained critiques of Islam and Al-Azhar Sunni Muslim 
orthodoxy, has been detained without formal charges under a 
series of renewed detention orders since late October. 
Although some observers note that his blog entries may open 
him to prosecution under the GOE's blasphemy laws, human 
rights activists have condemned the GOE's apparent reluctance 
to file formal charges against him.  In early November, the 
media freedom group, Reporters without Borders (RSF), charged 
that Egypt was violating internet freedom by its actions 
against bloggers such as Amer. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  The Ministry of Interior's appeal of an 
administrative court ruling in April, which had affirmed 
civil rights for Egypt's small community of Baha'is, has set 
the stage for a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court 
on December 16 (Ref A).  At issue is whether Egypt's Baha'is, 
who were formally disestablished by Nasser in 1960, have the 
right to obtain GOE identity documents.  GOE administrative 
practice, which appears to conflict with constitutional 
guarantees of freedom of religion, requires identity card 
applicants to self-identify as Jew, Christian, or Muslim. 
Most Baha'is, who are considered apostates by mainstream 
Islam, have been unwilling to lie about their religion.  As a 
result, they face great difficulties in conducting civil 
transactions, including registering births, marriages and 
deaths, obtaining passports, enrolling children in school, 
and obtaining bank accounts and driver's licenses. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  In recent months, a spate of video clips of 
apparent police brutality against detainees has led to debate 
in the blogosphere and in the independent press.  Of the half 
dozen videos in circulation, most document non-lethal 
brutality apparently aimed at humiliating or scaring 
detainees, but one clip, which has sparked the most comment, 
purportedly documents a violent sexual assault by police on a 
male detainee.  Journalist Wael Abdel Fattah of the 
independent weekly Al-Fagr recently published an article 
which identified the rape victim, Emad Ali Mohamed Kabir, as 
a taxi driver from Giza who said that the rape occurred in 
January 2006, and that he had declined to press charges due 
to fear of police retaliation.  According to recent press 
coverage of the "torture video" phenomenon, the Ministry of 
Interior is conducting an internal investigation process to 
identify the officers portrayed in the videos.  In response 
to a request by the respected Arab Center for the 
Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, the 
Public Prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into 
the videos. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  In another case involving attacks by ruling party 
supporters against opposition demonstrators during the May 
2005 referendum, the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights 
(EIPR), supported by about a dozen other human rights NGOs, 
secured a ruling in late November from the African Commission 
for Human and People's Rights (ACHPR), an African Union 
entity based in the Gambia, to hear a case against the GOE. 
(The GOE's own investigation into the referendum assaults was 
closed after the GOE said that it was not possible to 
identity the perpetrators, many of whom were documented on 
video as they beat and sexually assaulted opposition 
demonstrators and journalists.)  The ACHPR inquiry against 
the GOE will commence in May 2007 and could ultimately lead 
to a formal ACHPR rebuke of the GOE. 
 
------------------- 
Ayman Nour's Health 
------------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  The ongoing incarceration of Ayman Nour (Ref B), 
the ailing head of the Ghad Party, who was convicted in a 
controversial trial of forging his party's registration 
documents, continues to stir debate.  Nour, who is diabetic 
and has heart trouble, has been jailed since his December 
2005 conviction, shortly after he finished a distant second 
to President Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election and 
then lost his parliamentary seat.  Recently, Nour's family 
and supporters have reported that his heart condition is 
worsening and have urged the GOE to release him under a 
health-based parole.  Even popular television host Amr Adib, 
who is known for his close contacts with the government, has 
called for the GOE to provide prompt and complete treatment 
for Nour, saying, "I do not want my country to look like a 
country in which there was a presidential candidate who died 
inside prison." 
 
 
CAIRO 00007109  003 OF 003 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
Death Sentences, Without Appeal, for Convicted Terrorists 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  The September conviction of the 2004 Taba terror 
bombing suspects in a State Security Court trial in Ismailia, 
followed by the passing of death sentences against the three 
main suspects in early December, has focused attention on the 
fact that convicts and their lawyers allege that they were 
tortured in detention and complain that they have no right to 
appeal the death sentences.  Only President Mubarak has the 
right to commute death sentences imposed by the State 
Security Court system. 
 
-------------------------- 
Detained Christian Convert 
-------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU)  Muslim-born convert to Christianity Bahaa 
Al-Accad has been imprisoned without charge since April 2005. 
 Al-Accad's family and lawyers, who believe that his 
conversion to Christianity is the reason for his detention, 
report that his health is failing.  International Christian 
advocacy groups are planning to adopt Al-Accad as prisoner of 
conscience.  Emboffs have raised Al-Accad's case on several 
occasions with the GOE, but he remains in detention. 
 
----------------------------- 
Muslim Brotherhood Detentions 
----------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU)  As documented by Human Rights Watch and other 
independent advocacy groups, and reported Ref C, 2006 has 
witnessed detentions without charge or trial of hundreds of 
opposition activists associated with the banned Muslim 
Brotherhood (MB), including senior MB leaders Essam El-Erian 
and Mohamed Morsi, who were detained May-early December as a 
result of their involvement in demonstrations in support of 
judicial independence.  The precise number of MB activists 
currently still in detention is unknown.  With the exception 
of El-Erian and Morsi, the GOE has typically detained MB 
members for relatively brief periods ranging from several 
weeks to several months. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶14.  (SBU)  Although the GOE clearly appreciates the need for 
high-level engagement on human rights issues, its critics 
charge that much of this engagement is cosmetic.  Police and 
security officials often appear to act with impunity.  The 
independent press and the alternative media, especially 
blogs, have played a key role in highlighting recent human 
rights abuses, but it is not yet clear if these watchdog 
efforts will lead to more robust GOE support of human rights. 
 
RICCIARDONE