Initial report on Egypt’s review of its universal periodic report, 34th session of the International Council for Human Rights, Geneva – November 2019

Gratitude
The National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms (NADRF) expresses thanks and appreciation for this considerable effort by the association’s work team in Geneva during the universal periodic review session No.34 at the International Council on Human Rights which included Egypt’s review of its human right record in the period from 10-15th November 2019.
We express our thanks to members of the delegation for their huge efforts as they made the nucleus in order for this report to become in this form with the purpose of analyzing the Egyptian file and those recommendations and observations submitted during the review session so we appreciate the role of each member of the delegation as follow:

1- Mr. Shady Amin
Director of Right Foundation for rights of opinion, expression and human rights; a human rights researcher and legal consultant of the National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms
2- Mr. Abdelnasser Qandil
Parliamentary affairs secretary at al-Tagammu Party and human rights researcher

3- Mr. Osman Ali Osman
International relations consultant at the National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms

We hope this report contributes to reforming the Egyptian human right record; positively dealing with analyses and recommendations which are the outcome of the accurate data extracted from recommendations and observations of the states about the Egyptian record as well as to make use of the universal periodic review mechanism to deepen values and principles of human rights in Egypt.

Walid Farouk
Head of the National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms
Cairo, 18/02/2020

This report:

The objective of this report is to deal with the digital analytics for Egyptian review of its universal periodic record in the 34th session held on November 2019 by the International Council on Human Rights. Proceedings of this review were attended by the NADRF’s delegation.

This report, also, seeks to analyze the recommendations rate that Egypt received during the review session and to compare the same with the previous review as well as to identify extent of change in the participants’ vision of the human rights situation in Egypt.
Researchers, who participated in this report, made a quick and statistical presentation of reports of previous reviews, whether in 2010 or 2014, to detect extent of development in using the review mechanism itself by all concerned parties whether the state that reviews its record or participating countries as well as to assess performance of the NGOs that participated, through their reports, in proceedings of the tripartite review sessions.

Methodology:
The report methodology depended on the following:
1-Those national reports submitted by the Egyptian State during three review sessions.
2-Reports of the work team (Troika) during the three review sessions.
3-Recommendations by states that participated in the interactive dialogue sessions.
4-Stakeholders’ reports
5-The report made by the operating team on the state’s statements and recommendations during the 3rd review session.

Introduction

When the work team proceeded to prepare the NADRF’s delegation to participate in proceedings of the universal periodic review in Geneva 2019- during which both Egypt and other 14 states reviewed their records- it has several perceptions about this first participation by the NADRF, results of this periodic review and the role of the domestic, regional and international NGOs in review and parallel proceedings.

However, upon actual participation in proceedings of the review, the situation has become clearer so we sought, through received recommendations and summary of the report, to present all our observations about how to develop performance of human rights organizations and the Egyptian government.

The most important thing that attracted attention of the team of researchers is that most participating states have a political not a human background and that political coalition or difference dominates interest of states and comes first at observations at the expense of the human right record. While, to the contrary, it is clear from stakeholders’ reports submitted by the human rights organizations that most organizations pay more concern to the human right situations. Although some organizations go beyond the outlined framework and deal in view of a political background rather than a human rights one, but performance of the human rights organizations still the strongest and most professional as compared to performance of several states participating in the periodic review.

On the other hand, we sought to provide an objective picture of the results of the 3rd universal periodic review report on Egypt in a quantitative and qualitative manner, and we have come to think of this report after detecting wrong beliefs among many media people, politicians and some NGOs that the number of interventions and recommendations are an indicator of the human rights situation in the state which is the subject of review. Some sought to intimidate about the 372 recommendations that Egypt received, while others sought to belittle those recommendations on the ground that they dealt with only five or six issues, so that we, away from intimidation or belittling, worked on presenting those recommendations that Egypt received; classifying the same according to their subjects; examining the extent of the change in the rate of recommendations, the reasons for this change and what does this change mean. Such issues will be clear to the reader after having taken cognizance of this report.

Shady Amin
Cairo, 2020

1

Summary
We can conclude a number of general observations regarding the Egyptian review session through a quantitative review of the recommendations received by the Egyptian government regarding the universal periodic review report, which are as follow:

First: The recommendations, that Egypt received, generally focused on the civil and political rights file with 56%, even if this rate decreased by 2% compared to the previous review session, but it reflects the international obsession and concern about those rights.

Second: The interest in the Egyptian women file constituted the majority of the recommendations received by Egypt despite the remarkable development in the political and economic empowerment of women in Egypt during the last period, a matter which is reflected in the formulation of those recommendations. As most of such recommendations were about going on political and economic empowerment. Negative recommendations, regarding the issue of women, came to physical violence, abuse and sexual harassment.

Third: In spite of the high number of reports issued by stakeholders, however, upon reviewing such reports it was clear that most of them are prepared by organizations that do not have branches in the Egyptian State. So such recommendations are a direct result of the case No. 173 -known as the foreign finance case – in addition to the low number of reports issued by Egyptian human rights organizations that decreased sharply in light of the blockade and restrictions imposed on Egyptian NGOs, topped by human rights organizations.

Fourth: The decrease in the number of organizations permitted to be present in Cairo forced human rights organizations abroad to rely on information sources, whether human rights or political sources, which negatively affected some recommendations that were based on inaccurate data.

Fifth: Egypt has received 42 recommendations regarding the necessity of cooperating with international human rights mechanisms and allowing private rapporteurs to make periodic visits to Egypt. In that regard, the Egyptian delegation stated that there is no objection to periodic visits by private rapporteurs, a matter which should be applicable down to earth through allowing private rapporteurs to visit Egypt, communicate with Egyptian human rights organizations and the National Council for Human Rights, thus, contributing to give a more accurate picture of the human rights status-quo in Egypt.

Sixth: Egypt received 19 recommendations about the support and development of the National Council for Human Rights, which is a dangerous and important indicator regarding assessing the performance of the National Council for Human Rights and its rank at the International Council for Human Rights.

Seventh: It is noticeable that all the data on which the recommendations were based came from the stakeholders’ reports and the compilation of the council’s work team, which clearly indicates the importance of the role that human rights organizations play and their impact on periodic review reports.

In addition, this impact will get optimized if the human rights organizations are given a greater role in the review sessions.

Eighth: We noticed, through monitoring and analyzing the interactive dialogue session and previous sessions, that countries adopt the selectivity methodology in dealing with recommendations based on stakeholder reports as the state selects some recommendations and issues from such reports.

Ninth: We noticed that states are still dealing with a political, not human rights, thought and approach, regarding interactive dialogue sessions and the recommendations issued during the same.

Tenth: It can be noted that the recommendations issued by some states regarding some issues and violations differ on the ground of states and their political relationships with the state which is the source of the recommendation. This means that the review is mostly based on political intrigue and alignment in the first place and then comes the protection of human rights in the country which is the subject of the review.

Eleventh: It is clear, through the follow-up of the interactive dialogue sessions, the high rate of participation in the dialogue sessions according to the political weight of the state and not according to the rate of human rights violations it has, which confirms that participation in the interactive dialogue and the recommendations that are presented come according to the idea of political support or political intrigue . For example, the session that witnessed the review of the Egyptian report included a review of the states (Italy – El Salvador – Zambia – Bolivia – Fiji – San Marino – Kazakhstan – Angola – Iran – Madagascar – Iraq – Slovenia – Egypt – Bosnia), save as the Egyptian file and the state of anticipation for its presentation, no other file can be labeled as attracting interaction and interest, except for the files of (Iraq – Iran).

The highest rates of participation came in the interactive dialogue sessions about Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Italy. The matter applies to the number of reports issued by stakeholders, which confirms the idea of participation on political rather than legal grounds.

Twelfth: It is noticeable that the performance of the Egyptian delegation and the Egyptian government in dealing with the periodic review report came better than previous reports, both in terms of preparing files, data and reports, as well as not denying the occurrence of violations and acknowledging their occurrence. This is a notable progress that was not found in any previous reports.

General recommendations
First: Recommendations to the Egyptian Government

• Accept all recommendations issued from the universal periodic review

• Set a national strategic plan in partnership with Egyptian, regional and international NGOs, in order to create mechanisms to implement the recommendations received by Egypt.

• Create a parallel mechanism for the periodic review that will be a national mechanism, through the Supreme Permanent Committee for Human Rights in partnership with Egyptian, regional and international human rights organizations and associations. The objective of this mechanism is to review what has been implemented by the Egyptian government toward the recommendations that it accepted and identifying the most prominent violations detected by various human rights organizations as well as reviewing plans and proposals for the next stage.

• Review Egyptian reservations to international agreements and work on ratifying the annexed protocols for the complaints mechanism

• Work on issuing the executive regulations for the NGO Law to ensure treating all negative points, included in the law, related to broad interpretative terms.

• To stop dealing with case No. 173 known as the foreign finance case.

• Give adequate interest in the civil and political rights file along with the official interest in civil and political rights in parallel with economic and social rights, subject that either of them should not be achieved at the expense of others.

Second: Recommendations to NGOs
• Create a network of local, regional and international organizations in order to follow-up the implementation of the recommendations accepted by the Egyptian government.
• Work through a strategic plan extending to November 2024, with the aim of evaluating the work of the Egyptian government in implementing the recommendations received by the Egyptian government, which work shoul
o The first group should be concerned with those recommendations on civil and political rights.
o The second group should be concerned with rights and recommendations about economic and social rights
o The third group should be concerned with the general recommendations
Provided that those groups should monitor and analyze the actions of the Egyptian government related to any of these files. This is in addition to monitoring and documenting violations in that regard, provided that quarterly reports should be issued to compromise detected items whether positive or negative. In addition, benchmarks should be set to measure the progress or retreat witnessed by any of such files
• Organize interviews with media, both state-owned and private, during which issues should be presented to gain media attention.
• Develop a communication strategy on how to publicize information to the masses, – provided that the language used in the universal periodic review is understandable to the all.
• Create national initiatives for issues with high priority to gain support of the masses.
• Work on building the capabilities of Egyptian human rights organizations with regard to dealing with the mechanism of the universal periodic review, particularly as the last stage witnessed a decrease in the role of NGOs in Egypt.
• Conduct a survey on opinions of citizens; identify their needs and priorities, and deliver their stances to the Egyptian Government.

• Work on building the capabilities of journalists and media professionals, and increasing their awareness of the nature of the review as well as the role of the media in creating awareness of citizens and delivering their opinions to decision makers. This, also, includes how to train media professionals to cover proceedings of the periodic review.

• To develop their mechanisms regarding parallel events held on the sideline of review sessions, since most of such activities are fruitless regarding drawing attention of the states participating in the review session about the human rights situation in the state which is the subject of the review. But we noticed that most proceedings were made by Egyptians only without any participation by foreign delegations, media commissions or even by the international NGOs or Egyptians organizations operating abroad.

Third: Recommendations to the National Council for Human Rights

• Play a role in preparing, in collaboration with the government, action plans related to human rights and strategies for the universal periodic review.

• Play a role in training civil society and providing technical advice to the government on implementing the recommendations of the universal periodic review;

• Provide technical assistance to concerned parties on how to write clear and applicable recommendations.

Fourth: Recommendations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

• Organize dialogue sessions that attended by human rights experts and NGOs to discuss mechanisms for developing the universal periodic review system so that such system ensures that NGOs are given a greater and more influential role with in the periodic review.
• Work on creating mechanisms that guarantee limiting the political use of the universal periodic review so that the periodic review is dedicated to protecting human rights away from political conflicts.
• Build capabilities of civil society representatives and support them to develop their performance in monitoring and documenting violations and preparing reports and data whether written or oral.
• Create credible and trusted relationships between NGOs and states for the purpose of enabling experience exchange from different states and regions, and giving states the podium for discussion by all national active parties.

• Engage with civil society and governments in documenting recommendations of the universal periodic review, examining the same in a methodical manner and in following-up compliance with the same.

• Prepare suggested models for creating mechanisms to implement the recommendations of the review reports

• Assist governments in developing national plans of action for human rights, including those steps necessary to implement recommendations of the universal periodic review;

2

Egypt underwent three sessions of the universal periodic review, the first of which was in 2010, then the second in 2014 and finally the third in 2019.

The three review sessions witnessed a noticeable increase in both the performance of the Egyptian government and its submitted reports or the performance of human rights organizations, and finally in the performance of the states participating in the interactive dialogue sessions.

It is clear, through the quantitative statistics or qualitative analysis of the performance of the three parties, that the review reports clearly detect the positive development rate in the performance of each party.

During the first review in 2010, the national report submitted by the Egyptian government was a more literary report that included many compositional phrases and sentences and was closer to a literary template than a technical one. The report clearly denied any violations related to human rights in Egypt, especially with regard to the civil and political rights file. The Egyptian report sought to circumvent around any criticism against freedom of opinion and expression, the right of peaceful gathering, participation in political life, or with regard to prisons, police stations, and torture.

We can say that this matter was not limited to Egypt and its national report alone, but also that during the first periodic review session, the Arab states almost no longer mentioned civil and political rights , avoided issues of freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of expression, forming association and gathering, and did not comment on issues of: citizen security and the excessive use of force, torture as well as elections and democratic participation.

The national reports witnessed slight progress in 2014, even though the report was dominated by the compositional narrative nature and circumventing everything related to civil and political rights. In 2019, the national report witnessed a clear qualitative shift, in terms of the method of preparing the report and largely going away from the fixed literary template in previous reports.

The national report in 2019 was distinguished by explicitly addressing issues related to civil and political rights, making statements dealing with torture cases in Egypt, referring some of the perpetrators to criminal or disciplinary trials, and rendering final judicial sentences against them.

The first participation in the review report, also, witnessed double rate of representation of Egyptian NGOs, as the stakeholder reports did not exceed 37 reports only.

Review year No. of stakeholders’ reports
2010 37
2014 34
2019 92

The number of stakeholder reports increased in the second review session to 43 reports with a growing rate bringing the number of stakeholder reports in 2019 to 92 reports.
It is noticed that the increasing rate of the number of stakeholder reports was not limited to a specified state, but sessions of most states, that were subject to review, witnessed an increase in the rate of stakeholders reports, which is an indicator of the extent of the progress of NGOs worldwide and the development in their work and its performance regarding the periodic review mechanism.

Also, the three periodic review sessions witnessed a remarkable development in the performance of the participating states in the interactive dialogue sessions. This development is a natural result of the states’ interest in periodic review reports on one hand, and on the other hand is a result of the role of NGOs that monitor and announce the situation of human rights, thus, enabling states to participate in the interactive dialogue, to deliver you the largest deal of information giving a broader room for dialogue and proper recommendations.

During the interactive dialogue sessions to review the three Egyptian reports, 154 states (representing more than 79% of the total seats of the United Nations General Assembly) requested to give a word 351 times with an average of 2.3 words for each state in the three review sessions with an average of 117 words per each review session.

No. of words given by delegations Review year
97 2010
121 2014
133 2019

The above figure shows the rate of development in the number of words and interventions of states in the interactive dialogue, but this increased rate coincided with the increase in the
number of reports submitted by stakeholders , as the rate of word requests in 2019 increased from 2014 by only 6.22%, while the average word rate in 2014 increased in 2010 by a rate of 8.4% of the total members of the General Assembly
In spite of this, the increase in the number of words given by states results in negative results of interactive dialogue and weakens dialogue as the time space specified for the words of states is fixed despite the increase in the number of requests for giving words, a matter that resulted in reducing the time allotted for each state to 55 seconds, thus resulting in interrupting some representatives of the states and depriving them from completing their recommendations or caused that some representatives for states had to reduce or merge recommendations.

First: 1st Periodic Review 2010
Egypt presented its review report during the edition No. (7) Of the Council in the session No. (15) Dated 17th February 2010, where the State’s official delegation was headed by Dr. Mufeed Shehab, Minister of State for Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils. (53) states participated in the interactive dialogue along with additional data from (44) states that could not be presented during the dialogue due to time limit, so the total is (97) states, taking into account that there are (11) states that submitted pre-questions to the Egyptian delegation due to the limited time allotted for them to talk (Czech Republic – Germany – Ireland – Netherlands Norway – Sweden – Switzerland) or because they did not want to speak directly during the interactive dialogue (Argentina – Denmark – Latvia – Britain).
The report of the Working Team (Troika) on the observations and recommendations of the review session was approved in the (17th) session on February 19th , 2010, as an initial step for approving the report on the Egyptian situation by the Human Rights Council (without a vote) at the edition No. (14), the session (25) on June 11th, 2010. The approval is based on Egypt’s response to situations whether to accept or reject recommendations that Egypt received.
Second: 2nd Periodic Review 2014:
Egypt presented its report for review during the edition No. (20) at the session (15) of the Council dated November 5th , 2014, where the official delegation of the state was headed by Justice/ Ibrahim Al-Huneidi, Minister of Transitional Justice and the House of Representatives for Affairs, where the report of the Working Team (Troika)
On the observations and recommendations of the review session was approved in the session No. (18) On November 7th, 2014, as an initial step for approving the report on the Egyptian situation by the Human Rights Council (without a vote). A number of (121) states participated in the interactive dialogue after the adoption of a mechanism that allows dividing time equally between the states desiring to participate. This is in addition to (13) states that submitted pre-questions to the Egyptian delegation.
Due to the limited time allotted to speak of (Spain – Germany – Belgium – Czechia – Slovenia – Sweden – Finland – Mexico – Britain – Norway – Netherlands – Switzerland) or because they did not want to speak directly during the interactive dialogue (Liechtenstein).
With the notable increase in the number of states interventions during the interactive dialogue of the review in (2014), which reached 121 states, it was natural for the general indicators related to the percentages and directions of the recommendations to rise, as we find that the recommendations that were totally approved (223 recommendations) were issued by ( 106) states topped by France (6) recommendations, followed by (5) states (Ghana – Iran – Senegal – Russia – Belgium) with (4) recommendations for each of them then (28) states with (3) recommendations for each country then (41) states with (2) recommendations, ending with (31) states with one (recommendation) for each. While the recommendations, that were partially supported, (24) recommendations were issued by (19) states topped by Czech (3) recommendations and (3) states (Germany, Sweden, Norway), with (2) recommendation by each and (15) states with one (recommendation) by each.
Recommendations that Egypt rejected reached (23) recommendations submitted by (24) states topped by (Switzerland – Chile – Portugal) with a number of (3) recommendations by each followed by (6) states with each submitted a number of (2) recommendations and then (15) states with one (recommendation) by each in addition to a rejected recommendation, submitted by Iceland, because it was inaccurate.
As for the recommendations that the state learnt, (29) recommendations, they were issued by (27) states topped by Norway with (3) recommendations, followed by (7) states, each with (2) recommendations, then (19) states with (recommendations) by each.
Classify Egypt’s recommendations 2014:

SN Recommendation Accepted Partially accepted Rejecter Learnt Inaccurate
1 Joining international treaties and reason of observations 8 4 8 6 0
2 Procedures for the legislative and corporate frameworks 36 1 13 2 0
3 Rights of woman, children, those who have special needs, family and other segments 75 3 0 0 0
4 Cooperation with international mechanisms 8 0 0 6 0
5 Spread human rights culture 8 0 0 0 0
6 Procedures and warranties of the judiciary and transitional justice 11 3 1 4 1
7 Combat human trafficking and illegal immigration 12 0 0 0 0
8 Civil and political rights 30 13 1 11 0
9 Economic, social and cultural rights 29 0 0 0 0
10 Anti-terrorism 6 0 0 0 0

The report was approved in the edition no. (28), session No. (42) Dated 20th March 2015 based on Egypt response whether to accept or reject submitted recommendations.

Egypt stance toward the recommendations:
SN Particulars Review 2010 2014 Review
1 Accepted recommendations (totally) 119 223
2 Accepted recommendations (partially) 0 24
3 Learnt recommendations 25 29
4 Rejected recommendations 14 23
5 Rejected recommendations (inaccurate) 7 1
Total recommendations 165 300

Third: the 3rd Review, November 2019

The 3rd Egyptian review report received great attention at all levels, whether local, regional or international, and this interest was clearly reflected in the review session.

Not only was the interest focused on media coverage, but this interest also extended to representatives of states, their eagerness to actively participate, comment on the Egyptian report, and make recommendations on the human rights situation in Egypt, so we will deal with the 3rd review session through two pivots:

First: Stakeholders reports
The session in which Egypt reviewed its report witnessed reviewing reports of 14 states, and the organizations and stakeholders submitted a number of 431 reports. The Egyptian file alone acquired the highest rate of reports submitted constituting 21.35% of the total submitted reports (92 reports), which is the largest percentage among states which are the subject of the review in the same period. Then, Iran came second with a ratio of 19.2%, followed by Iraq with 12.5%.

State Stakeholders reports %
San Marino 4 0.93
Fiji 8 1.86
Slovenia 11 2.55
Madagascar 14 3.25
Bosnia and Herzegovina 15 3.48
Gambia 15 3.48
Angola 19 4.41
El Salvador 20 4.64
Bolivia 31 7.19
Kazakhstan 31 7.19
Italia 34 7.89
Iraq 54 12.53
Iran 83 19.26
Egypt 92 21.35
Total 431 100 %

Not only that, but the rate of reports of stakeholders on the Egyptian file in 2019 varied from their counterparts in 2014 when 43 reports were submitted by stakeholders, but in 2019 the number increased by 114%, which is a high rate of change as 92 reports were submitted by stakeholders.

3

Although the working team did not issue its report on the recommendations of the interactive dialogue to review Egypt’s record (2019) on the human rights situation and in light of the absence of documented information based on the reports of the international organization or the Egyptian state’s responses to the recommendations it received, however it is possible to depend on the analysis of available information and data about the dialogue – which are extracted from the sound recording of the session and organization’s participations in the session- to present a semi-documented reading of the record and analyze those different stances toward the record.

With regard to the number of states that participated in the interactive dialogue (133) and the recommendations they made, the working team indicated trimming those recommendations to (372) ones.
The chart below shows frequency rate of recommendations by each state:

The highest rate of repetition of the recommendations was 3 recommendations per state, with a repetition rate of 39 times, while the lowest repetition rate was one for 9 recommendations, 8 recommendations, while the second highest repetition rate was 26 for 4 recommendations per state.

Subject of the recommendations of the 3rd Review 2019:

The recommendations issued in the 3rd Review varied between recommendations relating to civil and political rights, which came in the first place, at a rate of 56% of the total recommendations submitted to Egypt, while the general recommendations constituted a percentage not exceeding 23% and was ranked in the second place, but the recommendations concerned with economic rights constituted 21% of the total recommendations submitted to the Egyptian state, ranking the third.

The above chart shows that civil and political rights constituted the highest rates of attention at the general recommendations submitted to Egypt, so it can be expected from the first time that the above chart reflect the extent of the retreat in the file of civil and political rights in Egypt.
However, upon having taken cognizance of the recommendations previously received by Egypt in the 2nd Review report, you will find that there is a difference and variation in the rates of recommendations in general.

As the recommendations of the year 2014 were identical, with a great extent, to the rate of recommendations on civil and political rights even if the ratio exceeds the current recommendations by 2%, which means that the interest of the states, that discussed the Egyptian report, decreased by 2% for the civil and political rights file while they paid bigger attention to economic and social rights, as the rate of recommendations related to the economic and social rights was only 9% in 2014, but it increased to 21% in the last review.

The above chart clearly shows a similarity between the recommendations of 2014 and 2019 with regard to the file of civil and political rights. It, also, shows the increase in the rate of interest in economic and social rights, while rate of interest in general recommendations decrease.

It is clear that rate of interest in economic and social rights increased by13.81% while the rate of interest in civil and political rights decreased by 2% and interest in general recommendations decrease by 12.15%.
We can say that this rate of variation in the type of rights, which are the subject of the recommendations, comes in response to the Egyptian government’s vision which repeatedly pointed out that its key interest is the file of the economic and social rights, a matter that motivated the international community to respond to this issue through focusing on economic and social rights at the expense of the general recommendation while those recommendations –related to civil and political rights – remained the same in 2014 constituting the same percentage of the total recommendations.

The above chart shows both the positive and negative change rates for recommendations according to subjects as follows:
Enhancing human rights respect was ranked the highest regarding retreat in recommendations which decreased by 10 compared to 2014 followed by recommendations about Egyptian women which decreased by 9 recommendations. Then comes the recommendations about cooperation with the international human rights mechanisms, which decreased by 8 compared to 2014.
While enhancing the role of the National Council for Human Rights was ranked the highest regarding increase in recommendations which increased from 19 in 2014 to 17, followed by the annulment of the death penalty and enhancing the economic and social rights as recommendations increased by 12 compared to 2014. Then, recommendations about right of work and combating unemployment increased by 11 ones, followed by recommendations about education which increased and the recommendations about freedom of opinion and expression as well as rights of refugees and migrants increased by 8 ones.

4

The 3rd Periodic Review Record witnessed the presentation of 93 reports by stakeholders in addition to giving the podium to 133 states during the interactive dialogue session, which resulted in the submission of 372 recommendations to the Egyptian state on the human rights situation in Egypt.
We previously referred to the general change rates in the recommendations submitted to the Egyptian state in 2014 compared to 2014 in terms of quantity and quality.
The rate of quantitative changes in the number of the states that gave words or the number of stakeholders’ reports as well as in the number of recommendations issued by the review sessions was clear, a matter that we see as a positive development regarding the capability of the participating state in the interactive dialogue sessions to use the available tools and interact positively with respect to reviewing the file of the concerned state.

We will work, through the last section of this report, on dealing with those recommendations submitted to Egypt in the last review session in November 2019, as follow:

Total recommendations submitted to Egypt:

Egypt received 372 recommendations from 133 states that gave words during the interactive dialogue sessions. These recommendations covered 26 different issues regarding economic, social, civil and political rights, and some general recommendations.

SN Subject No. of recommendations
1 Cooperation with international human rights mechanisms 42
2 Support the National Council for Human Rights 19
3 Eliminate discrimination against minorities 7
4 Right of development and combating corruption 16
5 Minimum care to prisoners 4
6 Anti-torture 16
7 Freedom of belief and tolerance 9
8 Civil society and NGOs Law 23
9 Death penalty annulment 27
10 Enlightenment, training and awareness of human rights principles 14
11 Freedom of opinion and expression 23
12 Anti-terrorism 9
13 Right of fair and just trial 12
14 Health (physical, sexual, fertility and psychological) 4
15 Education 12
16 Combatting human trafficking 8
17 Family 5
18 Woman 58
19 Work and combating unemployment 11
20 Right of housing (provide proper housing, drinking water and sewage) 6
21 Rights of those who have special needs 4
22 Reduce poverty 12
23 Child rights 10
24 Rights of Nubians and Bedouin residents 1
25 Rights of refugees and migrants 8
26 Economic and social rights 12
Total 372
The recommendations related to Egyptian women topped the list of recommendations received by the Egyptian government with 58 diverse recommendations regarding women’s rights and economic and political empowerment for them.

While the recommendations on cooperation with international human rights mechanisms were ranked the second at a rate of 42 recommendations followed by death penalty annulment, then came freedom of opinion and expression as the fourth with a number of recommendations 27, 23 for each of them respectively.

No. of recommendations

While the rights of the residents of Nubia, the minimum rights of care for prisoners, the right of physical and sexual health and the family, and the right of housing came in the last ranks in terms of the number of recommendations received by the Egyptian government in that regard.

Rate of the recommendations submitted Egypt on ground of subject:
We previously indicated that the recommendations were classified into three key subjects: which are miscellaneous general recommendations, recommendations related to civil and political rights, and finally recommendations related to economic and social rights.
We will deal with each file separately.
First: General Recommendations
Egypt received 84 recommendations on 4 general subjects only, which are cooperation with international human rights mechanisms and support of the National Council for Human Rights in addition to enlightenment, training and awareness of human rights principles.
SUBJECT NO. OF RECOMMENDATIONS
cooperation with international human rights mechanisms 42
support the national council for human rights 19
Enlightenment, training and awareness of human rights principles.
14
combatting terrorism 9
Total 84

The recommendations for cooperation with international mechanisms reached 42 ones, which is the highest rate of recommendations received by Egypt in general subjects. Supporting the National Council came second with 19 recommendations, then training at a rate of 14 recommendations.

Second: economic and social rights:
The recommendations concerned with the economic and social rights witnessed a significant increase compared to 2014 – as we previously explained in detail in the preceding section – Egypt received 78 recommendations related to the economic and social rights
Subject No. of recommendations
Right of development and combating corruption 16
Health (physical, sexual, fertility and psychological) 4
Education 12
Family 5
Work and combating unemployment 11
Right of housing (provide proper housing, drinking water and sewage) 6
Poverty reduction 12
Economic and social rights 12

Right of development and combating corruption topped the economic and social rights with 16 recommendations, then both education and poverty reduction along with economic and social rights generally with 12 recommendations for each, followed by the right of work and combatting unemployment in the third rank with a number of 11 Recommendation.

Third: Civil and political rights:

Civil and political rights gained the highest rates of attention by those states that participated in the interactive dialogue, as 56% of the recommendations received by Egypt dealt with the civil and political rights file with 210 recommendations.

The file of Egyptian woman came first with a number of 58 recommendations that reviewed the rights of women regarding political participation as well as addressing violence against women, whether physical or sexual.
Whereas, the recommendations calling for staying the death penalty as a prelude to annulling the same, was ranked the second with 27 recommendations.
While the 3rd rank was occupied by the recommendations concerned with protecting freedom of opinion and expression, as well as supporting NGOs and enabling those organizations and associations to work without restrictions or limitation of their capabilities or targeting them.
As for the fourth rank, came recommendations concerned with reducing torture crimes, ensuring punishing the accused and probing into all allegations of torture.

Table of Contents
Subject Pages
Report Methodology 3
Introduction 4
Summary & Recommendations 5-10
Egypt & Universal Periodic Review 11-20
Overview of the 2019 Review 21-26
Digital Analytics of recommendations of 2019 Review 27-33