(6 Nov 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cairo - 6 November 2022
1. Wide of Amnesty International Secretary-General Dr. Agnès Callamard, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights founder Hossam Bahgat and Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director Philip Luther seated behind table
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International:
"Lets be very clear, we are running out of time. So if the authorities do not want to end up with a death that they should have and could have prevented, they must act now. 24/48 hours,72 hours at the most, that's how long they have to save a life. If they don't, that death will be holding on to that COP27. It will be in every single discussion, every single discussion there will be allies there."
3. Mid of panel
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International:
"The human rights situation right now in Egypt is so severe that it will not be possible for Egypt authorities to spin themselves out of it. It simply cannot do that. It will not fool us and it will not fool the people that are coming to Sharm (El-Sheikh). It cannot be spinned (spun), concrete action must be taken."
5. Mid of panel
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International:
"While we welcome the 766 released, according to our own figures, we are however concerned by the fact that according to Amnesty International more than 1,500 people have been arrested over the last few months, since April. And that's over the last two weeks, 150 people have been arrested in relation to freedom of expression, freedom of association, peaceful expression of dissent."
7. Wide of news conference ending
STORYLINE:
Amnesty International's head on Sunday warned that the proceedings of COP27 in Egypt could be stained by the death of the country's leading rights activist from a hunger and water strike in prison if Egyptian authorities do not release him within days.
Agnes Callamard said Egypt had no more than 72 hours to save the life of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is also a U.K. citizen.
Egypt’s hosting of the climate summit, known as COP27, has trained a spotlight on its human rights record as a wide-reaching crackdown continues under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
The conference is being held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
“If they do not want to end up with a death they should have and could have prevented, they must act now,” Callamard said in a news conference in the capital of Cairo.
Callamard said she will be attending COP27 to push for action on human rights issues related to climate change, including loss and damage or reparations from richer countries to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change.
Egypt is a proponent of the issue.
But she will also be there to push for immediate action on the case of Alaa Abdel Fattah and that of the tens of thousands of political prisoners estimated to be inside the country’s jails, she said.
Opposition figure Abdel-Fattah escalated his hunger strike this week, refusing also water, to coincide with the first day of the COP27, according to his family.
His aunt, the writer Ahdaf Soueif, said he stopped drinking water at 10 a.m. local time on Sunday.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah hails from a family of well-known Egyptian activists and rose to prominence with the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and in Egypt toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak.
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