Following the arrest and detention in the UAE of Egyptian political commentator Sherif Osman, who faces the threat of extradition to Egypt, MENA Rights Group joins a coalition of 25 human rights organisations calling for his immediate release.
On December 13, 2022, MENA Rights Group supported a joint statement delivered by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) before the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), expressing serious concern over actions by ECOSOC Member States, including excessive and arbitrary delay in granting consultative status to NGOs.
MENA Rights Group joins NGOs in urging foreign embassies and the European Union Delegation to Egypt to call on the authorities to end reprisals against human rights defenders, including staff of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
The undersigned civil society organisations are writing to you to express their grave concern for the wellbeing of detained human rights defender Dr. Mohammed al-Qahtani, who has been subjected to enforced disappearance since 24 October 2022. We urge you to convey to your government the calls to disclose his whereabouts and to release him immediately and unconditionally.
The undersigned organizations express their deep concern at the risk of refoulement of an Algerian asylum seeker - Zakaria Hannache - present in Tunisia since August 2022. Tunisian authorities must under no circumstances repeat the dangerous precedent set by the kidnapping and refoulement of Algerian refugee Slimane Bouhafs on 25 August, 2021, about which no investigation has been opened to date in Tunisia.
In a joint letter addressed to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, a coalition of seven rights organisations raised their concerns over the prevalence of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia and its use against child defendants, pro-democracy protestors and non-lethal offences. The coalition further requested that the UN High Commissioner engage with the Saudi authorities on their use of the death penalty and urge them to implement a moratorium on its use.
The undersigned civil society organizations demand that the Libyan House of Representatives repeal the Anti-Cybercrime Law n°5/2022 issued on September 27th, 2022. We call for the law not to be applied, as it directly undermines human rights and fundamental rights, namely freedom of expression and opinion, and the rights to peaceful assembly, privacy, and personal data protection. The law also regularizes the Executive’s comprehensive, warrantless surveillance over the digital spaces and allows them to censor websites and content.
MENA Rights Group joins a coalition of NGOs calling on Egyptian authorities to immediately release human rights defenders Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Mohamed el-Baqer and Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim Radwan and all those arrested and detained solely for exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms.
In light of the unprecedented jail sentences recently issued against peaceful activists and others in Saudi Arabia merely for exercising their freedom of expression, concerns are growing for those who remain in arbitrary detention without charge or are facing prolonged trials or retrial. The undersigned NGOs call on the international community to intensify efforts to press the Saudi Arabian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those who are unjustly and arbitrarily detained in the kingdom for peacefully exercising their fundamental freedoms.
Ahead of COP27, MENA Rights Group and other members of the Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism denounce Egypt’s use of counterterrorism accusations against civil society.
25 October 2022, Banjul, The Gambia — REDRESS, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, MENA Rights Group, Lawyers for Justice in Libya, and the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies welcome the launch today of new regional guidelines aimed at supporting African States eradicate the practice of enforced disappearances on the continent.
