Although Sisi has recently announced launch of new human rights strategy, but the authorities continue to punish dissent and severely repress people’s human rights, where political prisoners are denied the right to visitation.
In prison, where there are more than sixty thousand political prisoners, detainees are deprived of their basic human rights, including the right to visitation.
On 11 September, Sisi launched a National Strategy for Human Rights which officials described as the first “integrated strategy that promotes the principles of the new republic”.
However, the reality of the human rights situation in Egypt is on the contrary of the propaganda promoted by the Sisi regime.
Most recently, specifically yesterday, Hanan Tawfik, wife of Dr. Bassem Oudeh, the former Minister of Supply under late President Mohamed Morsi, published a post on her Facebook account, calling on Egyptian authorities to allow her and her kids to visit her husband.
Ms. Tawfik said she hasn’t seen her husband for three years since she then saw him during a court session. The former minister’s wife complained that visits have been banned to political prisoners, including her husband, for five years so far. Ms.
Tawfik only saw Dr. Oudeh three years ago in court; and since then she has not seen him or heard his voice or checked on him. She called upon authorities to allow her to visit her husband as visitation has been forbidden for five years now.
Sha added that Dr. Bassem Oudeh’s mother and children are longing for seeing him, noting that the former minister of supply has been held in solitary confinement for eight years, and has been denied his right to visits for five years.
“Allow visitation because when he (Dr. Oudeh) was sentenced to prison, he was not sentenced to deprivation of the right to see his family and check on them,” she said.
US foreign affairs experts have recently called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to send Egypt a strong message on human rights at the U.S.-Egypt Strategic Dialogue, which began yesterday in Washington, DC.
The Biden administration often says that human rights are at the center of its foreign policy. However, Egypt is a big test case of that, as it and the U.S. are now holding high level talks.
In its letter to Blinken, The Egypt Working Group made very clear do not praise Sisi for this human rights strategy – or really for anything else – because it’s not credible.
