Professor Heyns, who last held the position of Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria, and who was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee from 2017 to 2020, was constantly engaged in regional and international human rights initiatives and legal reform projects in addition to his teaching and scholarly work.
Press Releases & News
Today, Patrick's lawyers have maintained the need for the prosecution to disclose the justifications for its request to continue Patrick's imprisonment, under ArticleNo.136 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the accused's defense to refute and refute it and for the court's balance between the prosecution's statements and the defendant's defense. In the face of the lawyers ’request, the Public Prosecutor reiterated his general phrase, which says,“ The justifications for remand are available. ”.
In the first 2 months of 2021 alone Egyptian authorities executed 7 prisoners.
67 new defendants were sentenced to death
48 new defendants received provisional death penalty sentences.
The continued detention of Islam Orabi despite obtaining a decision to release him and having paid his bail constitutes a crime of unlawful detention, and is punishable under Article 280 of the Penal Code which states: “Any person who arrests, jails or detains a person without order by the relevant authorities and in other than the cases in which laws and regulations authorize the arrest of suspects, he shall be punished with detention or a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds”. Orabi’s disappearance from the police department increases fears about his safety and the possibility of deterioration of his health, which may constitute a danger to his life.
This requirement constitutes an encroachment on the concepts of "energy poverty" and "energy justice", because it drains energy resources for the benefit of these factories at the expense of making them available to Egyptian families, especially the poorest. It also contradicts the Goal 7 of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030: "Clean energy at affordable prices", because it sells polluting energy to factories at lower prices than they are, thus impeding the shift towards clean energy.
Today, February 7th, marks a year since Patrick Zaki - the researcher at EIPR and Master’s student at the University of Bologna- was arrested from Cairo Airport. Since then, he has been on remand detention. Last week, the Third Felonies circuit ordered the renewal of his detention for 45 additional days. In the face of this incomprehensible intransigence EIPR can’t but repeat its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Patrick Zaki due to the absence of justifications for remand detention and demand the dropping of all charges against him.
Together with Egypt’s human rights movement we spent the 10 years prior to 2011 fact-finding and gathering evidence on almost every aspect of the blanket injustice that led Egyptians to rise on Police Day #25Jan.Starting today we’ll take you on a journey to remember how Egypt looked at the end of 30 years of authoritarian rule by #Mubarak
EIPR stresses the importance of equitable distribution of vaccines among citizens, and commitment to full transparency in clarifying the basis on which the vaccine will be distributed, because justice and transparency are the way to gain citizens' confidence in responding to the state's directives during the vaccination process of the Covid-19 vaccine.
EIPR believes that this world-wide support presented a good example of what could be achieved despite the severely shrunken space for civil society at large and the gagging of all professional and pro-democracy voices in Egypt’s mainstream media.
Today, an EIPR representative submitted a letter to Egypt’s Minister of Social Solidarity, Nevine Al-Kabbaj, after the cabinet announced its approval of the executive by-laws for the new NGO law at the end its meeting last week. According to the law, the by-laws were supposed to be issued before mid-February 2020. Hereafter are some of the main issues and points raised in this letter:
These developments all point to a deliberate attempt by authorities to escalate the crackdown on EIPR by targeting the organization itself in violation of the law, both substantively and procedurally. During the session itself, EIPR’s lawyers were not even allowed to view the content of the order nor were they able to confirm the names included in the asset freeze. They were also not allowed to meet with the defendants in private and consult with them, as has been the case since they were detained.
Abdel-Razek said during the interrogation he received inhumane and degrading treatment in his cell that puts his health and safety in danger. He further elaborated that he was never allowed out of the cell, had only a metal bed to sleep on with neither mattress nor covers, save for a light blanket, was deprived of all his possessions and money, was given only two light pieces of summer garments, and was denied the right to use his own money to purchase food and essentials from the prison’s cantine. His head was shaved completely.
South Cairo Criminal court issued yesterday its decision on Patrick’s hearing session, renewing his remand detention for an additional 45 day pending the investigation in the case 7245/2019. The hearing was held yesterday in Patrick’s presence and the presence of his lawyers from EIPR. Patrick has already spent more than 9 months in remand detention.
Solidarity action with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) We urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mohammed Basheer, Karim Ennarah and Gasser Abdel-Razek and the dismissal of the case against them.
The recent developments also come as a direct response to our activities in the field of international advocacy, and in particular our meetings with a number of diplomatic missions, the most recent of which was a meeting held at EIPR’s headquarters on November 3rd with 13 ambassadors and accredited diplomats, who discussed ways to improve human rights conditions in Egypt.
In an unprecedented escalation for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a security force arrested Mohamed Bashseer, the Administrative Manager at EIPR from his home after midnight on Sunday the 15th and detained him for more than 12 hours
And because monitoring clinical trial procedures in general, and this important experiment in particular, is part of the role of civil society, a member of the EIPR team volunteered and joined this clinical trial. He followed the procedures and was registered among the trial participants after completing and fulfilling the conditions for participation.
By the end of October 2020, the justice system in Egypt had carried out the largest number of executions (in different cases of a varying nature) since it began its expansion of the application of death penalty in the last five years. A total of 53 people were executed during the course of October, the last of these executions took place on October 28 when four convicts were executed in a judgement related to the killing of 17 people in a nightclub fire in Agouza.
EIPR will be advocating and supporting the adoption of all global policies that would ensure equitable access to medications, technologies and information for all, during this pandemic and beyond as part of its continuous quest to ensure the insurance of the Right to Health for all.
