CAIRO: Joe Stork is the Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and former editor-in-chief and founder of the Middle East Research and Information Project.
He was in Cairo last week for the release of a new HRW report on religious freedom in Egypt, which criticizes the government for not allowing citizens to truthfully record their religious beliefs in official documents such as ID cards.
He sat down with Daily News Egypt for a conversation about the government’s reaction to the new report, the deteriorating rights situation in Egypt, and the challenges of human rights advocacy in the Middle East.
Daily News Egypt: Since the release of your newest report on religious freedom, you have met with several government officials, including Deputy Interior Minister General Ahmed Omar. How did your meeting with General Omar go?
Well, the General reflected a lot of the government’s uncompromising attitudes in regards to the issues raised in the report, specifically the treatment of the Bahais regarding official religious identity – whether they are able to list themselves as ‘Bahai’ or ‘other’ on their ID cards – and also in regards to the question of conversion.
He was pretty adamant in defending the role of the security authorities in these matters. He said that people convert from one religion to another for non-spiritual reasons, because they want to get different advantages, like getting a divorce. I said to him, ‘Well, I understand why the Pope or the head of Al-Azhar would be upset about someone converting for material reasons, but that’s just not the business of the police or the security services.’
Did the General say why he thought the security services deserve a role in people’s religious life?
He argued that anything involving conversion in this society has a security aspect to it because of tensions between the religions.
We told him we would keep an eye on this and that we are concerned about it. We are particularly concerned because the idea that people decide to convert so they can manipulate differences in the personal status law for Muslims and Christians is not consistent with the fact that there are no obstacles placed in front of people who want to convert to Islam.
There are only obstacles if you want to convert from Islam to Christianity. This is hardly consistent with the fact that most of these conversions of convenience are people converting to Islam. If anything the people who are converting to Christianity are the most spiritually motivated, shall we say.
You have spent more than 25 years working in and writing about the Middle East, the last 10 of them at Human Rights Watch. How have you seen the human rights situation in Egypt change over the last few years?
Overall, I have to say that particularly in the area of political rights we have seen a deterioration, some real backward motion. There has been prosecution of various journalists and editors, who have been accused of libel and given criminal sentences. There was the jailing of blogger Kareem Amer. It has been kind of across the board. After a period of some improvement, especially in terms of freedom of expression, we have recently seen a roll back.
I think the area of freedom of association is a real area of concern too, in particular NGOs, political parties and human rights organizations. We are very concerned about the shut down of the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid this fall and the shut down of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services last winter, which also brings in a freedom of expression and libel issue with the prosecution of Kamal Abbas for slander. There seems to be a real determination on the part of the government to discipline various institutions of civil society like the media, NGOs and human rights organizations.
I also think the area of religious freedom is a real concern. The issues raised in our most recent report are part of that, but there are larger issues going on as well. Just look at the under-representation of Copts in government positions, and all the discriminatory policies regarding the maintenance and construction of houses of worship for Christians and Muslims.
For the last year the Egyptian media has been abuzz with stories about torture at the hands of police and state security. Just last week two policemen were convicted for the torture and sexual assault of microbus driver Emad El-Kabir. Do you think Egypt is making progress against torture?
Torture and mistreatment of detainees continues to be a real problem here. Sure, some positive steps have been made, like the convictions in the Emad El-Kabir case. That was a very welcome development. But, you know, given the video tape of the torture actually taking place, it would have been a real shock if those men had not been convicted. In a sense, this was the easy one.
We are particularly concerned with the case of Ashraf Mustafa Hussein Safwat, the State Security officer who tortured a man to death in 2003. At least Safwat was investigated and prosecuted. That was the first time we know of since 1986 when someone from the State Security was investigated for torture, even though there are a lot of credible reports of torture at the hands of State Security officers. They operate with a real impunity here, and that is a real cause for grave concern.
Has Egypt made any significant positive steps on human rights?
Over the past couple of years we have seen some positive steps, for example in regards to arbitrary detention. The number of people held without trial has dropped considerably over the last few years, from around 15,000 at one point to between 4,000 and 6,000 today. That’s a positive thing, but the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day there are still maybe 6,000 people in jail without any charges.
That’s something that everyone should be concerned about. Nothing structural has changed here. Sure, the number of prisoners has been reduced and the number of newly detained people has gone down, but we’re still talking about a lot of people being held in intolerable conditions.
I would highlight one positive step, though, and that’s the closing of the loop hole on FGM. It’s now against the law, and that’s a good thing. It’s a fairly discrete step, but an important one.
In your position as deputy director for the whole region, you oversee work in a number of different Middle Eastern countries. How does working on human rights in Egypt compare to working elsewhere?
Egypt is a relatively open country, although that’s only as long as you are looking at issues here in Cairo or in the Cairo-Alexandria metropolitan area. It’s not easy to conduct research in rural areas or in Upper Egypt. It’s not easy, but it is a lot better than some other countries where we can’t get visas to do anything.
In terms of access to officials, it’s improving, although for instance we were unsuccessful in getting anyone to meet with us before we published this last report. That’s part of a pattern that we have encountered before. We always make requests to meet officials, but I can’t think of a time in the last four years when they have agreed to meet with us before we publish something. Among other things, that means that we can’t include officials’ views in our report. In the end, at least we get the meetings, but they are not always very constructive.
Do you think that people have reason to be hopeful about the human rights situation in Egypt?
You know, I always tell people that we are in the business of hope, but not in the business of prediction. But I do think that things here will turn around, in regards to the human rights situation. I think that Egyptian activists and organizations are able to function here openly without much hindrance or obstruction is a cause for hope. That is a very important thing to keep in mind, even though a lot of the recent trends have been worrying.
The main issue I see is how do you help nurture a human rights culture? It’s hard, and the signs of that here are disappointingly few. But there are reas
ons to be hopeful. One encouraging sign I see is the fact that you now have media that take up human rights issues, that take up stories about torture allegations by police, and that cover things like our press conference this week. When they cover these stories, they do so pretty fairly and accurately. That is not something that you could count on ten or even five years ago. And that is a really positive step.
