Egyptian rights groups protest about nominee for UNESCO role

Egyptian rights groups have protested against the country’s candidate for UNESCO’s top job, claiming that she is not qualified for the post due to her “complicity” in Egypt’s state repression. According to a statement released last week by the groups, Moushira Khattab has continued to be silent on the state’s closure of several libraries and cultural institutions in the country.

A leading human rights lawyer and head of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Gamal Eid, has campaigned against Khattab’s nomination for the UNESCO role. He started his campaign after he appealed for her help following raids by security agents at three of the six libraries he set up in Egypt’s poor neighbourhoods with prize money from a human rights award that he won.

After promising to help, Khattab told him that the courts would have the final say on the matter, which was later upheld by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. So far, there have been no court cases on the library closures.

UNESCO has been vetting the eight candidates vying to head the organisation which focuses on education, science and culture. The UN body’s executive board, which consists of 58 member states, will begin electing a nominee by secret ballot today.

In May, Sisi passed a contentious new law to regulate the work of NGOs in the country which now join a long list of organisations and people targeted by the state as it increases its crackdown on civil society dissent.

Read: Egypt blocks Human Rights Watch website amid widespread media blockade