On 30 July 2005, around 200 demonstrators gathered in Cairo following a call for assembly by the Kefaya and other opposition movements to protest President Hosni Mubarak’s intention to seek a fifth mandate. The protesters were attacked by Egyptian security forces and men in plain clothes armed with truncheons. The demonstrators were planning to head for Down Town Tahrir Square but when they arrived the entire square was closed off by security forces which forced them to disperse into several groups heading to several parts of the city. There, numerous demonstrators, including human rights activists, were beaten and dragged along the ground. Thirty people were arrested and reportedly detained in unofficial detention centres, in the camps of the central security forces in Darassa, Cairo. As of 2 August 2005, all demonstrators arrested are free, 24 are out on bail while investigations take place. They were arrested without legal justification, as the right to peaceful assembly is guaranteed by the Egyptian Constitution and the international human rights standards. Journalists covering the demonstration were also harrassed by police.
The FIDH and the EOHR recall that on 25 May 2005, the security forces had used excessive force to crack down on another protest aiming at the boycott of a constitutional referendum. Plainclothed security agents beat demonstrators, and riot police did nothing when mobs of Mubarak supporters beat and sexually assaulted protestors and journalists.
The FIDH and the EOHR are concerned about this most recent example of a continuing pattern of human rights violations, namely the negation of the freedom of expression and the freedom to peaceful assembly, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international standards and, in particular of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which was ratified by Egypt in January 1982.
The FIDH and EOHR call upon the Egyptian authorities to :
– drop all charges against the demonstrators since they infringe on their right to peaceful assembly;
– take measures to ensure that police officers conform their behavior to international standards which guarantee the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, and put an end to use of force in all circumstances, and that the perpetrators of the violence of 25 May 2005 and 30 July 2005 will be brought to justice;
– ensure the freedom of expression and guarantee the right of peaceful assembly to all Egyptian citizens as guaranteed by the Egyptian Constitution and international human rights instruments, in particular by Articles 19 and 21 of the ICCPR ; and,
– put an end to the state of emergency and to all Egyptian laws which infringe on and restrict fundamental liberties, namely the freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression.