US Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission criticizes Egypt’s human rights record post-2011
Witnesses at a US congressional hearing on human rights in Egypt delivered a scathing review yesterday, saying that Egypt has “descended into a military autocracy” with a less-than-stellar human rights record since the 2011 uprising. The four witnesses pointed to the NGOs Law, the Protest Law, the Judicial Authorities Act, and the Youth Institutions Act as examples of repressive legislation passed by the Sisi administration. Issues such as the pretrial detention of activists and Ikhwan supporters also came up (You can watch the full session here, runtime 1:24:41).
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement ahead of the hearing, describing it as “a new episode of intentionally misrepresenting conditions in Egypt.” The statement accused the human rights commission of being biased, as Egypt’s request to add “more neutral” witnesses to the roster was refused.