A commission formed by Egypt’s government to look into major bloody events that happened since last summer’s political upheaval against Muslim Brotherhood-led rule says it welcomes cooperation with international human rights watchdog Amnesty International, state run news agency MENA reported on Tuesday.
MENA said the commission invited Amnesty to meet with it “as soon as possible” to share information and evidence of rights abuses taking place between 30 June 2013 and 30 June 2014.
The commission said last week it had urged Amnesty to present it with such information in but added that the NGO didn’t respond to the request.
Last week, Amnesty International released a report detailing alleged rights abuses in the year since the popularly-backed ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, including reports of torture, unfair trials and detentions it said exceeded 16,000, particularly targeting Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
“On every level Egypt is failing in terms of human rights,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
“It is up to the new government led by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to turn the tide by launching independent, impartial investigations into all allegations of human rights violations and send a strong message that flouting human rights will not be tolerated and will no longer go unpunished.”
The 30 June commission – formed by order of interim president Adly Mansour – has recently denied several reports of police abuse in prisons after carrying out investigative visits. The commission’s final report has not yet been concluded.
The commission’s head Fouad Abdel-Moneim Riyad said in February that the report would not be made public due to sensitive information related to national security.
The commission has called for the assistance of local and international NGOs in its research.
Egyptian NGOs including the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights have presented their reports on post-30 June abuses to the commission.
Source: Ahram Online
