The State is keen to continue its efforts to promote human rights and guarantee fundamental freedoms, in parallel with the efforts to combat terrorism and extremism, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his meeting with Mohamed Fayek, the head of the semi-government National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) on Saturday.
During the meeting, Al-Sisi discussed Human rights conditions with Fayek, and reviewed annual report prepared by the council over Human Rights condition of year 2016/2017, as well as the challenges hindering comprehensively maintaining human rights concepts. The discussions over human rights included social and economic perspectives and was not limited only on human rights politics
Al-Sisi said that the efforts taken by the State in combating terrorism and protecting national security have positively contributed to strengthen foundations of security and stability, without impacting human rights.
In this regard, Fayek said that the report has documented the responsibility of terrorism in killing a number of civilian, members of the armed forces and the police.
Fayek said that he reviewed to the president the important points included in the report, which highlighted that the recent period has witnessed progress in human rights starting with recent presentational pardons granted to youth and civilians in different cases.
He further said that these positives also included issuance of a number of legislations that contributed to promote rights of citizens in various aspects of life, as well as the government adoption for an economic reform plan that focused on the low-income and neediest citizens.
Among the recommendation provided in the report or the advancement of human rights were organizing events to spread the concepts of human rights, in addition to continue working on improving the economic and social conditions of citizens.
The meeting also included discussions over number of topics to be improved during the next phase, including improving the living conditions of prisoners, upgrading the centres and places of detention, and attention to the role played by civil society.
Daily News Egypt contacted, member of the NCHR Abdel Ghaffar Shokr to inquiry on when the report would be in public, in which he responded that this would happen after presidency response.
NCHR has made a multiple visits to prisons, to check validity of complaints received by families reporting that their inmates are facing some troubles. The council is aiming to make the visit on regular basis though coordinating with Ministry of Interior.
Earlier this month, a report was published by American-founded international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch HRW Egypt’s governmental reporting that there is “systematic torture practices” in detention places based on interviews with 19 people, Egyptian media reports and local NGOs. The report claimed that the current police apparatus “brought back violent practices of the Mubarak era in addition to lack of accountability.” Government entities has rejected the report depicting it as unfounded and based on unofficial sources.
