Egyptian lawyer Tarek Mahmoud filed a legal complaint against the heads of four of Egypt’s human rights organizations for “threatening national security” a day after they met with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to local media reports. The complaint was filed on Wednesday against Mohamed Zaree, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Mohamed Lotfy, the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, and Gasser Abdel-Razek, the executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Tarek Mahmoud said in the complaint that the four men “provided French officials with false information on the political conditions in Egypt” and accused the government of being “responsible for forced disappearances and carrying out torture in Egyptian prisons.” Mahmoud added that they were “insulting the Egyptian state and undermining the country’s national security, and collaborating with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group to achieve its goals of bringing down the Egyptian state.” On Tuesday, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies issued a statement providing details about the meeting. In the statement, it is…
Human Rights Advocates Accused of Spreading ‘False News’ After Meeting with Macron
January 31, 2019
