EGYPT
Written by Editor
Tuesday, 18 February 2014 02:19
The IWL-FI supports the petition below to demand democratic rights for the Egyptian people. Access the campaign’s website to sign too.
To: President Adly Mansour
Prime Minister Hazem el Beblawi
We, the undersigned, condemn the Egyptian government’s arrest, detention and torture of activists exercising their right to legally and peacefully protest. Human rights groups, journalists’ associations, and other organizations have documented abuses by Egypt’s police and security forces, including the use of excessive force, mass arrests, and the torture and killing of those who dissent.
Since the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, one government after another has pledged to hold the state’s security apparatus accountable for its abuses of Egyptian citizens, and one government after another has failed to do so. The right to speak out and to peacefully assemble and protest is an essential component of a democratic society, and the Egyptian Revolution was broadly celebrated for achieving this most fundamental aspiration of the Egyptian people. But this aspiration has been thwarted by the military’s rehabilitation of the hated security laws as well as some of the same individuals who carried out these repressive laws before they were driven from public life by the 2011 revolution.
We call on all those who stand for such basic rights as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to protest to join us in demanding the immediate release of activists targeted by the Egyptian regime in the exercise of their democratic rights and an end to the government’s use of repression against all those who wish nothing more than the dignity of having their voices heard.
Click here to sign the petition ⇒ egyptsolidaritycampaign.org/