Freedom Initiative launches campaign to highlight targeting of US rights defenders

The Washington DC-based human rights NGO the Freedom Initiative has launched a campaign to raise awareness about violations committed by the Egyptian government against rights defenders based outside Egypt.

Billboards in New York City and Washington DC feature the statue of liberty gagged with the Egyptian flag, which the NGO says represents Egypt’s repression of American citizens.

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Egypt is one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid, but still commits serious rights abuses against Americans, including on U.S. soil.

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— The Freedom Initiative (@thefreedomi) November 8, 2021

As a punitive measure to silence Egyptian activists living abroad, authorities in Cairo have arrested and detained family members at home in a bid to force them into silence and deter other activists abroad from speaking out.

Mohamed Soltan, who co-founded the NGO, is an Egyptian American former political prisoner in Egypt who was burnt with cigarettes, had his ribs broken and denied urgent medical attention for a bullet wound whilst in prison.

Aly Hussin Mahdy, an Egyptian asylee living in Chicago, saw his family arrested in Egypt at the beginning of February after a series of videos he posted online speaking out about human rights abuses committed by the Egyptian government.

Also highlighted in the campaign are Middle East Programme Coordinator for the CPJ, Sherif Mansour, whose family has been repeatedly targeted, and US residents Ola Qaradawi and Hossam Khalaf who have been imprisoned in Egypt because of Ola’s father, the scholar Yusuf Qaradawi.

READ: Egypt places female political prisoner in cell with criminals, ENHR reports

“Egypt’s targeting of Americans and their family members not only constitutes a grave abuse of human rights, and it’s an affront to America’s national security interests,” says Freedom Initiative’s Research Director Allison McManus.

“The scale of transnational repression that we’ve seen from the Egyptian government is characteristic of enemy states, certainly not the actions of an ally. It is especially critical that US policymakers stand up for the American people and extend their no concessions policy on hostage-taking to Egypt.”

Over recent months the issue of US military aid to Egypt has been highlighted by rights groups, who call for it to be leveraged on solid evidence that Cairo is respecting human rights.

In September, the Biden administration announced that it was conditioning $300 million of the $1.3 million military aid it gives Egypt every year on progress being made on human rights violations, but critics said the US should condition or withhold all of it.

There are roughly 65,000 political prisoners in Egypt who are systematically tortured, denied medical aid, and sentenced to death.

Several high-profile prisoners have committed suicide, made attempts on their lives, or announced that they feel suicidal due to the dire conditions they are kept in and severe restrictions on family visits.

“Egypt’s increasing reliance on transnational repression to silence critics has alarmingly increased in recent years and it’s now spreading to US shores,” said the initiative’s Advocacy Director Todd Ruffner.

“It is unconscionable that Egypt, an ostensible US ally for decades, would resort to targeting people on American soil simply for expressing their opinion. The Biden administration and congressional policymakers need to pay close attention, document these growing abuses, and make clear to Egypt that there will be consequences if this abhorrent behaviour does not stop.”