the events of the 64th African Commission on Human & People’s Rights

Alerts, Egypt May 5, 2019

The  64th African Commission on Human and People’s Rights was organized by Egypt in Sharm Al Sheikh on 24-29 April, trying to get a leading role in the commission’s work and activities. Naturally, it was nowhere in the news and very few people learned or reported about what happened during that event. However, Nigerian Prof. Chidi Anslem, with whom we, as human rights activists, used to work extensively on the Commission during the Mubarak regime, wrote on Twitter the troubles they had with visas and other arrangements to delegates trying to attend the Commission’s annual conference. It was a scandal of big proportions, though not publicized. Prof. Chidi’s tweets:

  • “In Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, proceedings are underway in #ACHPR64, the 64th Ordinary Session of @ACHPR. The conditions are far from conducive. The Egyptian Mukhabarat are stifling advocacy & harassing NGO advocates with a systematic obstacle course of manufactured difficulties.
  • Groups attending #ACHPR64 are finding that visas are difficult to get. Yesterday, after facing serious frustration, @ACHPR negotiated for some groups to travel on the condition that they would get visas on arrival. That experience was worse than an ordeal.
  • Registration has proved difficult. Agents of the Mukhabarat are everywhere, rifling through documents & bags. Their excuse is counter-terrorism presumably. But a few participants are complaining of documents disappearing from their bags & rooms just like that at #ACHPR64. Advocacy documents cannot be distributed at the venue of the #ACHPR64 without the express consent of the Secretary to the Commission, who in turn must get the permission of the chief of the #Mukhabarat, who will vet the document with an eye on censorship. It’s crazy-fying.
  • In particular, participants from Ghana, Malawi, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania have been unable to get visas to #ACHPR64. In the end, Ugandan groups have had to ask ppl from outside #Africa to represent them. Egypt’s Mukhabarat is succeeding in stifling the session as they set out to do. Egypt’s Mukhabarat has been as brazen & shameless in its interference in the proceedings of #ACHPR64 as @ACHPR has been supine & timid.
  • The full extent of the interference is captured in this complaint by the body of NGOs attending the session:

Chidi continued:

  • “Overnight at the Sharm El Sheikh proceedings of #ACHPR64, many more participants report what appears to be a pattern of intrusive harassment from agents of Egypt’s Mukhabarat. Rooms have been ransacked, things are out of place, items of advocacy & campaign inexplicably vanish.
  • The saga of Egypt’s Mukhabarat & their “impressive” doings at the #ACHPR64 continues. They’ve gone around surreptitiously arresting & detaining NGO advocacy materials, making much of advocacy work at the session impossible. If they weren’t security officials, they’d be thieves.
  • Egypt has succeeded in frustrating the life out of the proceedings of #ACHPR64. Panels are sparsely attended & sessions empty. Delegates, Observers, even Commissioners & staff of @achpr_cadhp have got tired of running the gauntlet of endless harassment by Mukhabarat agents.
  • Last week, a bag containing campaign materials for the #HandsOffOurACHPR campaign inexplicably vanished without a trace from the venue of #ACHPR64. It now turns out that the bag has bn “detained” by the Mukhabarat.
  • Now the public sessions are ending, they want to grant it “bail”! This morning at #ACHPR64 in Sharm El Sheikh, the panels are struggling to make a quorum of Commissioners.
  • The attrition from Egypt & its Mukhabarat is taking a huge toll on staying power & bandwidth. That’s how they want it. They’re succeeding beyond their dreams. “

 

Also EuroMed issued a statement prior to the event: