Amnesty International (AI) has accused Egypt’s National Security Agency of attempting to harass and intimidate human rights defenders into silence.
The rights group said in a report, This will only end when you die, that its researchers interviewed 28 people who said that the NSA threatened them with arrest and prosecution unless they attended police interrogations.
The NSA, Development Diaries understands, handles terrorism and political cases in the Maghreb nation.
The report says the intimidation tactics have increased over the past two years, with thousands of activists impacted.
According to the report, activists and human rights defenders said at every summons NSA officers regularly threatened them with arrest and prosecution unless they attended interrogations and raided the homes of those who failed to appear.
The rights group noted that the measures taken by the NSA against these activists constitute a violation of international law as well as the Egyptian constitution and Code of Criminal procedures.
‘This new NSA tactic of persistent intimidation and harassment of activists, lawyers and NGO workers is one that is destroying lives’, the organisation’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said.
‘It prevents them from working, travelling and means they live under constant fear of arrest. NSA officials’ questions and threats reveal one clear objective: to stifle human rights and political activism.
‘This is yet another example of how NSA officers abuse their powers, brazenly denying freedoms and basic human rights. Impunity for NSA violations over the years has shown that there is no political will to end these abusive practices.
‘For this reason, Amnesty International is calling on members of the UN Human Rights Council to urgently support the establishment of a monitoring and reporting mechanism on Egypt’.
At this time, the government of Egypt had not responded to the allegations against the NSA.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party, no individual may be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention and no one may be deprived of his or her liberty except on grounds and procedures established by law.
Source: Amnesty International
Photo source: Oxfam Novib
