The African
Commission on Human and People's Rights today starts its 37th
session in the Gambia, during which it will consider Egypt's third periodic
report about the Government's implementation of the provisions of the
African Charter on Human and People's Rights.
According
to Article 62 of the Charter, States Parties have an obligation to submit to
the Commission a periodic report every two years about the measures the
State has taken to give effect to the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the
Charter. However, since ratifying the Charter in 1984 the Egyptian
Government has only submitted three out of nine reports. The last time
Egypt's record was scrutinized by the Commission was in October 2000.
Hossam
Bahgat, Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) will
participate in part of the Commission's session this year. He will present
to the Commission members independent reports concerning the situation of
human rights in Egypt and hold discussions with the Commission's Special
Rapporteurs on prisons, women, human rights defernders, freedom of
expression, extra-judicial executions and refugees. The Egyptian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs refused this week to share the Government's report with the
EIPR because "it is still being prepared".
The EIPR's
Director will also take part in the parallel seminar organized by the
Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) on the
abolition of the death penalty in Africa. During the seminar the FIDH will
launch its report on the death penalty in Egypt, which contains the outcome
of the fact-finding mission that the international organization had
dispatched to Egypt last November to investigate the subject.
On the
occasion of the African Commission's meeting the EIPR today called on the
Egyptian government to take immediate steps to join the treaty establishing
an African Court on Human and People's Rights, which entered into force in
December 2003. Fifteen States have ratified the Protocol on the
establishment of the Court so far, including three Arab States: Libya,
Algeria and the Union of Comoros.
Last August
the EIPR called on the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit after the
completion of his first African tour to ensure Egypt's speedy ratification
of the African Charter's Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, in
conformity with the State's declared commitment to women's rights.
"The
Government must prove its sincerity in seeking to strengthen the mechanisms
of the African Union," said Hossam Bahgat, Director of the EIPR. "Egypt's
desire to play a leading role in the continent's political and economic
affairs must be accompanied with concrete steps in the filed of human
rights; and joining the African human rights instruments will be a good
start."
