12 November, 2019
Egypt Human rights organizations: The threat of gang-style jurists will not stop exposing abuses
The undersigned human rights organizations express their strong condemnation and condemnation of the blatant attack on the defender and lawyer Jamal Eid, director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, in the context of a campaign targeting him personally, including physical assaults and the destruction of his property. On the Arab Network after borrowing from it for one day, in addition to the ongoing defamation campaigns against him in the newspapers and national news sites (state-owned) and private close to the security services. The organizations say that the state’s resort to the methods of armed gangs that seek to spread terror and fear, will not stop the efforts of jurists to expose human rights violations. The organizations also affirm their full solidarity with colleague Jamal Eid in the face of the campaign targeting him, and holds the state responsibility to protect his life and preserve his personal safety and property.
Last month, Eid was subjected to a series of attacks, as well as some of his lawyers. In early October, Gamal Eid’s car was stolen in the vicinity of his office in one of the most crowded fields in Maadi.
Just 10 days after this incident, Jamal Eid was subjected to a forced robbery that put his life in danger, on his way home, where he was threatened with a pistol, firing a warning shot into the air, and beating him, causing fissures with some ribs . It is worth mentioning that the Maadi police station refrained from editing a report of the theft for 24 hours after the attack. He recently agreed – after another car crash with Jamal Eid – was stolen.
In addition to repeated threat calls from unknown numbers, the speaker intentionally repeats the phrase: “I am still remaining Jamal”. According to eyewitnesses, there were about seven people carrying firearms who had stopped in front of the car and one of them contacted the other talking about the descriptions of the car and then left, unlike the arrest of Amr Imam, lawyer for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
That the use of state tools gang intimidation is not new, it has already used to infringe on the consultant Hisham Geneina machine head of the Central Auditing Agency earlier in January last year, prior to his arrest and conviction by military courts rigorous imprisonment for five years. Although the government’s reliance on such tactics is a disgraceful act, it should be elevated.
Finally, the signed human rights organizations hold the Egyptian state responsible for protecting Gamal Eid’s life and maintaining his personal safety and property, and for the state to comply with its obligations to achieve this.
Signatories:
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
- Nadeem Center
- Freedom of Thought and Expression Foundation
- Comedy for Vestes
- Egyptian Front for Human Rights
- Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms