This document provides an overview of Human Rights Watch’s observations and questions to Egypt in advance of the upcoming pre-sessional review of Egypt by the UN Human Rights Committee (“the Committee”).
Paris-Geneva, 25 May 2021
Excellencies,
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), urges UN Member States to
urgently step up their action to ensure global counter-terrorism policies do not negatively impact civil society and human rights defenders.
Although human rights were given a central place in the UN Global Counter-Terrorist Strategy (GCTS), human rights organisations have extensively documented the minimisation and under-funding of human rights aspects of the strategy[1]. In addition, civil society and human rights defenders have remained sidelined
in an overwhelming majority of processes within the UN Counter-Terrorist Architecture[2]. This situation has led to