Mohamed Zaree | |
---|---|
Born | 13 August 1980 |
Nationality | Egyptian |
Employer | Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies |
Known for | human rights activism |
Mohamed Zaree is an Egyptian human rights activist. He is the Egypt country director for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) [1] and the leader of the Forum of Independent Egyptian Human Rights NGOs. [2] He was the recipient of the 2017 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. [3] He was not allowed by the Egyptian government to collect his award and he is currently banned from leaving the country by the Egyptian government. [4] [5]
Zaree attended Cairo University, where he obtained a Bachelor's Degree from the Faculty of Law in 2002 and a graduate diploma in Civil Society and Human Rights in 2004. [2] He Joined CIHRS in July 2011. [2] He has two daughters. [5]
Martin Ennals was a British human rights activist. Ennals served as the secretary-general of Amnesty International from 1968 to 1980. He went on to help found the British human rights organisation ARTICLE 19 in 1987 and International Alert in 1985.
Liberalism in Egypt or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campaigners, participants in direct action, or just individuals acting alone. They can defend rights as part of their jobs or in a voluntary capacity. As a result of their activities, human rights defenders (HRDs) are often subjected to reprisals including smears, surveillance, harassment, false charges, arbitrary detention, restrictions on the right to freedom of association, physical attack, and even murder. In 2020, at least 331 HRDs were murdered in 25 countries. The international community and some national governments have attempted to respond to this violence through various protections, but violence against HRDs continues to rise. Women human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders face greater repression and risks than human rights defenders working on other issues.
Human rights in Egypt are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt under the various articles of Chapter 3. The country is also a party to numerous international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, the state of human rights in the country has been criticized both in the past and the present, especially by foreign human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As of 2022, Human Rights Watch has declared that Egypt's human rights crises under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is "one of its worst ... in many decades", and that "tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists, peaceful activists, and human rights defenders, remain imprisoned on abusive 'terrorism' charges, many in lengthy pretrial detention." International human rights organizations, such as the aforementioned HRW and Amnesty International, have alleged that as of January 2020, there are some 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. Other complaints made are of authorities harassing and detaining "relatives of dissidents abroad" and use of "vague 'morality' charges to prosecute LGBT people, female social media influencers, and survivors of sexual violence." The Egyptian government has frequently rejected such criticism, denying that any of the prisoners it holds are political prisoners.
The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, sometimes called "the Nobel Prize for human rights", is an annual prize for human rights defenders. It was created in 1993 to honour and protect individuals around the world who demonstrate exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. Its principal aim is to provide protection to human rights defenders who are at risk by focusing international media attention on their plight, mainly through online means and advocacy work. The Award is named after British human rights activist Martin Ennals, former secretary general of Amnesty International and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Emadeddin Baghi is an Iranian Journalist, human rights activist, prisoners' rights advocate, investigative journalist, theologian and writer. He is the founder and head of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in Iran, and the author of twenty books, six of which have been banned in Iran. Baghi was imprisoned in connection with his writings on the Chain Murders of Iran, which occurred in Autumn 1998, and imprisoned again in late 2007 for another year on charges of "acting against national security." According to his family and lawyers, Baghi has been summoned to court 23 times since his release in 2003. He has also had his passport confiscated, his newspaper closed, and suspended prison sentences passed against his wife and daughter. Baghi was rearrested on 28 December 2009 on charges related to an interview with Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri. Baghi was released and then again rearrested on 5 December 2010.
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Mona Seif is an Egyptian human rights activist known for her participation in dissident movements during and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution, for her creative use of social media in campaigns, and for her work to end military trials for civilian protesters. She is a biology graduate student, investigating the BRCA1 breast cancer gene.
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Peter Greste is a dual citizen Latvian Australian academic, memoirist and writer. Formerly a journalist and foreign correspondent, he worked for Reuters, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera English; predominantly in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.
Mohamed Soltan is an Egyptian American human rights advocate and former political prisoner in Egypt.
Yara Sallam is a prominent Egyptian feminist and human rights advocate. She has worked as a lawyer and researcher for several Egyptian and international human rights organizations, as well as for the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR).
The Ettehadiya case is a controversial legal case in Egypt where thousands of protesters went down to the Ittihadiya Palace, the Presidential offices in Cairo, asking for the repeal of the newly issued protest law as part of the international day for the solidarity with the Egyptian detainees on 21 June 2014. The march headed for the Heliopolis presidential Palace was demanding the repeal of the protest law and the release of prisoners of conscience - including prominent human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah - was attacked by security forces using teargas and at least 30 activists were arrested among them award winning human rights defender Yara Sallam, young activist and filmmaker Sanaa Seif, and contemporary art dancer Mohamed Anwar Masoud Moftah.
Bahey eldin Hassan is an Egyptian human rights defender and one of the founders of the Egyptian human rights movement in the 1980s. Hassan currently serves as the Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), which he cofounded in 1993. In 2014, and after receiving death threats for his human rights work, Hassan had to leave Egypt and currently lives in self-imposed exile in France. Hassan is also a journalist, lecturer, author and editor of several published articles, papers and books on human rights and democratic transformation in the Arab region.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) (Arabic: المفوضية المصرية للحقوق و الحريات, romanized: al-Mafwaḍiyyah al-Miṣriyyah lil-Ḥuqūq wal-Ḥurrīyāt) is an Egyptian human rights organisation based in Cairo. The organisation has been subject to continuous harassment by the Egyptian authorities after reporting on human rights abuses by the el-Sisi government. ECRF is one of the very few human rights organisations still operating inside a country increasingly hostile to dissent and in which countless civil society organisations have been forced to close. The commission coordinates campaigns for those who have been tortured or disappeared, as well as highlighting numerous incidences of human rights abuses.
Mozn Hassan is an Egyptian women's rights campaigner. The founder of Nazra for Feminist Studies, she took part in the protests of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and worked to help those who were sexually assaulted at the time. Since then she successfully campaigned for changes to be made to the Constitution of Egypt and sexual crime laws to safeguard women. Hassan was awarded the Global Fund for Women’s inaugural Charlotte Bunch Human Rights Award in 2013. She also received the Right Livelihood Awards, known as the "alternative Nobel Peace Prize", in 2016. She is currently subject to a travel ban and asset freeze by the Egyptian government for allegedly violating foreign funding laws.
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Events in the year 2020 in Egypt.
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