India's concept of nationhood is based not merely on territorial
extent of its sovereignty. Nationalistic sentiments and expression
encompass that India's ancient history, as the birthplace of the Indus Valley Civilization and Vedic Civilization, as well as four major world religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Indian nationalists see India stretching along these lines across the Indian Subcontinent.
Ages of war and invasion
The Mughal Empire at its greatest extent, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
The extent of Maratha Empire (yellow), without its vassals.
Akbar
was a Mughal emperor, was known to have a good relationship with the
Roman Catholic Church as well as with his subjects – Hindus, Buddhists,
Sikhs and Jains. He forged familial and political bonds with Hindu Rajput
kings. Although previous Sultans had been more or less tolerant, Akbar
took religious intermingling to new level of exploration. He developed
for the first time in Islamic India an environment of complete religious
freedom. Akbar undid most forms of religious discrimination, and
invited the participation of wise Hindu ministers and kings, and even
religious scholars to debate in his court.
The consolidation of the British East India Company's
rule in the Indian subcontinent during the 18th century brought about
socio-economic changes which led to the rise of an Indian middle class and steadily eroded pre-colonial socio-religious institutions and barriers.
The emerging economic and financial power of Indian business-owners and
merchants and the professional class brought them increasingly into
conflict with the British Raj. A rising political consciousness among
the native Indian social elite (including lawyers, doctors, university
graduates, government officials and similar groups) spawned an Indian
identity and fed a growing nationalist sentiment in India in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The creation in 1885 of the Indian National Congress in India by the political reformer A.O. Hume
intensified the process by providing an important platform from which
demands could be made for political liberalisation, increased autonomy,
and social reform.
The leaders of the Congress advocated dialogue and debate with the Raj
administration to achieve their political goals. Distinct from these
moderate voices (or loyalists) who did not preach or support violence
was the nationalist movement, which grew particularly strong, radical
and violent in Bengal and in Punjab. Notable but smaller movements also appeared in Maharashtra, Madras and other areas across the south.
Swadeshi
The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal
escalated the growing unrest, stimulating radical nationalist
sentiments and becoming a driving force for Indian revolutionaries.
The Gandhian era
Mohandas Gandhi pioneered the art of Satyagraha, typified with a strict adherence to ahimsa (non-violence), and civil disobedience.
This permitted common individuals to engage the British in revolution,
without employing violence or other distasteful means. Gandhi's equally
strict adherence to democracy, religious and ethnic equality and
brotherhood, as well as activist rejection of caste-based discrimination
and untouchability
united people across these demographic lines for the first time in
India's history. The masses participated in India's independence
struggle for the first time, and the membership of the Congress grew
over tens of millions by the 1930s. In addition, Gandhi's victories in
the Champaran and Kheda
Satyagraha in 1918–19, gave confidence to a rising younger generation
of Indian nationalists that the British Raj could be defeated. National
leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Mohandas Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad and Badshah Khan
brought together generations of Indians across regions and
demographics, and provided a strong leadership base giving the country
political direction.
More than just "Indian"
Indian nationalism is as much a diverse blend of nationalistic
sentiments as its people are ethnically and religiously diverse. Thus
the most influential undercurrents are more than just Indian in
nature. The most controversial and emotionally charged fibre in the
fabric of Indian nationalism is religion. Religion forms a major, and in
many cases, the central element of Indian life. Ethnic communities are
diverse in terms of linguistics, social traditions and history across
India.
Hindu Rashtra
Hindu Flag of the Maratha Empire with two pennants.
An important influence upon Hindu consciousness arises from the time of Islamic empires in India.
Entering the 20th century, Hindus formed over 75% of the population and
thus unsurprisingly the backbone and platform of the nationalist
movement. Modern Hindu thinking desired to unite Hindu society across
the boundaries of caste, linguistic groups and ethnicity. In 1925, K.B. Hedgewar founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Nagpur, Maharashtra, which grew into the largest civil organisation in the country, and more potent, mainstream base of Hindu nationalism.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar coined the term Hindutva for his ideology that described India as a Hindu Rashtra,
a Hindu nation. This ideology has become the cornerstone of the
political and religious agendas of modern Hindu nationalist bodies like
the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Hindutva political demands include revoking Article 370 of the
Constitution that grants a special semi-autonomous status to the
Muslim-majority state of Kashmir,
adopting a uniform civil code, thus ending a special legal framework
for Muslims. These particular demands are based upon ending laws that
Hindu nationalists consider as offering special treatment to Muslims.
The Qaum
In 1906–1907, the All India Muslim League was founded, created due to the suspicion of Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders with the Indian National Congress, which was perceived as dominated by Hindu membership and opinions. However, Mahatma Gandhi's leadership attracted a wide array of Muslims to the independence struggle and the Congress Party. The Aligarh Muslim University and the Jamia Millia Islamia
stand apart – the former helped form the Muslim league, while the JMI
was founded to promote Muslim education and consciousness upon
nationalistic and Gandhian values and thought.
Indian nationalists led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
wanted to make what was then British India, as well as the 562 princely
states under British paramountcy, into a single secular, democratic
state. The All India Azad Muslim Conference, which represented nationalist Muslims, gathered in Delhi in April 1940 to voice its support for an independent and united India.
The British, however, sidelined this nationalist Muslim organization
and came to see Jinnah, who advocated separatism, as the sole
representative of Indian Muslims. To Indian nationalists, the British intentionally divided colonial India in order to keep the region weak.
In an interview with Leonard Mosley,
Nehru said that he and his fellow Congressmen were "tired" after the
independence movement, so weren't ready to further drag on the matter
for years with Jinnah's Muslim League, and that, anyway, they "expected
that partition would be temporary, that Pakistan would come back to us." Gandhi also thought that the Partition would be undone. The All India Congress Committee,
in a resolution adopted on 14 June 1947, openly stated that "geography
and the mountains and the seas fashioned India as she is, and no human
agency can change that shape or come in the way of its final destiny...
at when present passions have subsided, India’s problems will be viewed
in their proper perspective and the false doctrine of two nations will
be discredited and discarded by all." V.P. Menon, who had an important role in the transfer of power in 1947, quotes another major Congress politician, Abul Kalam Azad,
who said that "the division is only of the map of the country and not
in the hearts of the people, and I am sure it is going to be a
short-lived partition." Acharya Kripalani,
President of the Congress during the days of Partition, stated that
making India "a strong, happy, democratic and socialist state" would
ensure that "such an India can win back the seceding children to its
lap... for the freedom we have achieved cannot be complete without the
unity of India." Yet another leader of the Congress, Sarojini Naidu,
said that she didn't consider India's flag to be India's because "India
is divided" and that "this is merely a temporary geographical
separation. There is no spirit of separation in the heart of India."
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led India to victory in 1971 against Pakistan, imposed the Indian Emergency, led it to become a nuclear power state in 1974 and is blamed for the Khalistan insurgency and Operation Blue Star – a controversial blend of nationalism and hard politics.
The political identity of the Indian National Congress, India's largest political party and one which controlled government for over 45 years, is reliant on the connection to Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Nehru-Gandhi family
which has controlled the Congress since independence. The Congress
Party's fortunes up till the 1970s were single-handedly propelled by its
legacy as the flagship of India's Independence Movement, and the core
platform of the party today evokes that past strongly, considering
itself to be the guardian of India's independence, democracy and unity.
Muslims had remained loyal voters of the Congress Party for a
long time, as Congress party protected Muslim community's interests like
banning The Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie. and allowing the unconstitutional practice of Triple Talaq to continue.
Recently, Muslims have started abandoning Congress party in favor of
other parties like Aam Adami Party (AAP) and All India
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musilmeen (AIMIM). In contrast, the Bharatiya Janata Party employs a more aggressively nationalistic expression. The BJP seeks to preserve and spread the culture of the Hindus, the majority population. It ties nationalism with the defence of India's borders and interests against archrivals China and Pakistan, with the defence of the majority's right to be a majority.
The Indian Armed Forces, over a million troops strong, is the 3rd largest army in the world
The modern Army of India was raised under the British Raj in the 19th century. Today the Republic of India maintains the world's third largest armed forces with over a million troops strong. The official defence budget stands at ₹1,644,151.9 million (US$23 billion) but the actual spending on the armed forces is estimated to be much higher. The army is undergoing rapid expansion and modernisation with plans to have an active military space program, missile defence shield, and nuclear triad capability.
The International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI), which combines scores for a wide range of human rights, is produced by the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD); ratings in the table below are as of 11 October 2014. All Muslim countries have a human rights rating of less than 62%.
Here are the per cent and decimal of each country's contribution to human rights followed.
The population percentage figures below are from the Pew Research Center report, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, as of 27 January 2011; all majority Muslim countries (with population over 50% Muslim) are listed.
Country
Muslim % of total population
International Human Rights Rank Indicator rating
Afghanistan
99.8
27.96%
Albania
82.1
52.15%
Algeria
98.2
33.49%
Azerbaijan
98.4
44.40%
Bahrain
81.2
47.03%
Bangladesh
90.4
47.20%
Brunei
51.9
29.99%
Burkina Faso
58.9
41.14%
Chad
55.7
21.68%
Comoros
98.3
37.89%
Djibouti
97
37.31%
Egypt
94.7
42.67%
Guinea
84.2
38.90%
Indonesia
88.1
29.29%
Iran
99.7
36.22%
Iraq
98.9
30.42%
Jordan
98.8
45.83%
Kazakhstan
56.4
47.09%
Kuwait
86.4
48.25%
Kyrgyzstan
88.8
38.55%
Lebanon
59.7
42.53%
Libya
96.6
36.95%
Malaysia
61.4
52.10%
Maldives
98.4
48.17%
Mali
92.4
30.58%
Mauritania
99.2
40.01%
Mayotte
98.8
37.47%
Morocco
99.9
50.92%
Niger
98.3
35.60%
Oman
87.7
45.73%
Pakistan
96.4
38.61%
Palestine
97.5
44.93%
Qatar
77.5
47.80%
Saudi Arabia
97.1
27.08%
Senegal
95.9
29.17%
Sierra Leone
71.5
21.51%
Somalia
98.6
22.71%
Sudan
71.4
30.21%
Syria
92.8
23.82%
Tajikistan
99
40.11%
The Gambia
95.3
35.80%
Tunisia
97.8
50.47%
Turkey
98.6
47.64%
Turkmenistan
93.3
43.04%
United Arab Emirates
76
61.49%
Uzbekistan
96.5
36.77%
Western Sahara
99.6
27.55%
Yemen
99
41.91%
Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam
The CDHR was signed by member states of the OIC in 1990 at the 19th
Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Cairo, Egypt. It was seen as the
answer to the UDHR. In fact, the CDHR was "patterned after the
UN-sponsored UDHR of 1948". The object of the CDHR was to "serve as a guide for member states on human rights issues."
CDHR translated the Qur'anic teachings as follows: "All men are equal
in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and
responsibilities, without any discrimination on the basis of race,
colour, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social
status or other considerations. True religion is the guarantee for
enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity." On top of references to the Qur'an, the CDHR also referenced prophetic teachings and Islamic legal tradition.
While the CDHR can be seen as a significant human rights
milestone for Muslim-majority countries, Western commentators have been
critical of it. For one, it is a heavily qualified document.
The CDHR is pre-empted by shariah law – "all rights and freedoms
stipulated [in the Cairo Declaration] are subject to Islamic Shari'ah."
In turn, though member countries appear to follow shariah law, these
laws seem to be ignored altogether when it comes to "[repressing] their
citizens using torture, and imprisonment without trial and
disappearance." Abdullah al-Ahsan describes this as the Machiavellian attempt which is "turning out to be catastrophic in the Muslim world."
Individual countries
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has been under the human rights spotlight for a number
of decades, receiving increased attention from the early 1990s onwards.
Much of the period between the 1940s to 1980s was characterized by
Saudi's perceived passivity on the issue as well as its refusal to sign
the UDHR.
The period thereafter has seen a significant uptake on the matter. It
all began with Saudi's handling of the Second Gulf War in 1991, which
created much unhappiness and opposition amongst its citizens.
Thereafter, a group of Saudi citizens attempted to establish a
non-governmental human rights organization called the Committee for the
Defence of Legitimate Rights ("CDLR"). Within weeks of its formation, Saudi authorities arrested many of its members and supporters.
Following the release of its main founder and president-Almasari, the
committee was reformed in London where it received attention from human
rights organisations worldwide. CDLR's work shed much-needed light on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia that was previously clouded in secrecy.
While some have lauded the progress made, others have remained
highly critical of the country. In a 2013-human rights review of Saudi
by CountryWatch, it is said that Saudi has a "poor record of human
rights" with the country's law "not [providing] for the protection of
many basic rights".
The report goes on to detail the many shortcomings in the country such
as corruption, lack of transparency, the presence of corporal
punishments and the lack of separation between the three branches of the
State i.e. Judiciary, Executive and Legislature.
By 2017, Saudi Arabian authorities had intensified their efforts in cracking down against human rights activists. Many activists, including one who provided information to Amnesty International,
have been detained or appeared in court for their work acknowledging
the Saudi authorities plan to continue their crackdown on peaceful
opposition. Human rights activists are vanishing, prosecuted, jailed or
forced into exile which shows authorities' intolerance with freedom of
expression.
Pakistan
The human rights situation in Pakistan is generally regarded as poor by domestic and international observers. Initially, the 1973 Constitution twice enjoins "adequate provision shall be made for minorities" in its preamble, and the Fourth Amendment (1975) guaranteed at least six seats in the National Assembly
would be held by minorities to safeguard their "legitimate interests".
However, the human rights record of Pakistan declined under the
dictatorship of the US-supported General Zia. General Zia introduced Sharia Law which led to Islamization of the country. The current regime in Pakistan has been responsible for torture, extrajudicial executions and other human rights violations. Honor killings are also common in Pakistan.
Turkey
Turkey is considered by many as being the exemplary country of the
Muslim world where a satisfactory compromise is made between the values
of Islamic and Western civilisations.
One of the main reasons cited for Turkey's significant improvement in
its human rights efforts over the past few decades is the country's push
towards satisfying European Union pre-conditions for membership.
In 2000, AI, on the back of visits made to the country to observe
human rights practices, found that Turkey was demonstrating signs of
greater transparency compared to other Muslim countries. In 2002, an AI
report stated that the Turkish parliament passed three laws "…aimed at
bringing Turkish law into line with European human rights standards." The same report further noted that "AI was given permission to open a branch in Turkey under the Law on Associations."
Some of the latest human rights steps taken by Turkey include
"the fourth judicial reform package adopted in April, which strengthens
the protection of fundamental rights, including freedom of expression
and the fight against impunity for cases of torture and ill-treatment;
the peace process which aims to end terrorism and violence in the
Southeast of the country and pave the way for a solution to the Kurdish
issue; the September 2013 democratisation package which sets out further
reform, covering important issues such as the use of languages other
than Turkish, and minority rights."
Further progress was also recorded on the women's rights front
where Turkey was the first country to ratify the Council of Europe
Convention against Domestic Violence.
Also, in 2009, the Turkish government established a Parliamentary
Committee on Equal Opportunities for Men and Women to look at reducing
the inequality between the sexes.
Despite all these advancements, there are still many significant
human rights issues troubling the country. In a 2013-human rights report
by the United States Department of State, amongst the problems to
receive significant criticism were government interference with freedom
of expression and assembly, lack of transparency and independence of the
judiciary and inadequate protection of vulnerable populations.
Human Rights Watch has even gone as far as to declare that there has
been a "human rights rollback" in the country. According to the report,
this has taken place amidst the mass anti-government protests which took
place in 2013. Under the current leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
the ruling party has become increasingly intolerant of "political
opposition, public protest, and critical media".
Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran has one of the worst human rights
records of any country in the world. Amongst the most serious human
rights issues plaguing the republic are "the government’s manipulation
of the electoral process, which severely limited citizens’ right to
change their government peacefully through free and fair elections;
restrictions on civil liberties, including the freedoms of assembly,
speech, and press; and disregard for the physical integrity of persons
whom it arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, tortured, or killed."
In 2014, Human Rights Watch reported that despite changes to the
penal code, the death penalty was still liberally meted resulting in one
of the highest rates of executions in the world. On top of that,
security authorities have been repressing free speech and dissent. Many
opposition parties, labour unions and student groups were banned and
scores of political prisoners were still locked up.
The country has generally closed itself off to outside
interference. The government has refused the request of the United
Nations to have Special Rapporteur-Ahmed Shaheed report on the human
rights situation in the country though they did, however, announce that
two UN experts would be allowed to visit in 2015.
Various sources have raised concern to Egypt's response to human rights
issues. Authorities have banned protests and freedom of expression,
imprisoned its opponents, usually after unfair trials, outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, and expanded its anti-terrorism powers. Torture, forced disappearances, and deaths in custody are not rare occurrences. The government continues to persecute NGOs
and journalists. Women and members of religious minorities are subject
to discrimination. People are arrested for “debauchery” and sexual
orientation.
Due to an insurgency in Northern Sinai,
the army has enacted curfews and evicted communities from their homes
along the border with Gaza in order to restrict the flow of arms. A new constitution
was adopted in January 2014. The document, in principle, improved
protections for women's rights, freedom of expression, and other civil
liberties. However, these rights have not been enforced in practice.
In a December 2016 report, a panel of UN experts concluded that: “The continuous persecution of women human rights defenders such as Azza Soliman
and Mozn Hassan... establishes and reinforces a pattern of systematic
repression of the Egyptian women’s rights movement, aiming to silence
and intimidate those working tirelessly for justice, human rights and
equality”
On July 24, 2018, a hearing was held before the Subcommittee on the
Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S.
House of Representatives, on security, human rights, and reform in
Egypt.
In September 2017 Human Rights Watch reported that since the 2013 military coup "Egyptian authorities have arrested or charged probably at least 60,000 people."
With the 2019 Egyptian constitutional referendum
that saw voters approve of proposed amendments, observers concluded
that el-Sisi was "building a brand of authoritarianism that has not only
demolished the democratic gains of the 2011 uprising but surpasses the
autocracy of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader who was forced from
power during the revolt."
The prison conditions in Egypt may have directly led to the death
of former President Mohamed Morsi, and may be placing the health and
lives of thousands of more prisoners at severe risk, UN independent
experts said on 9 November 2019.
Freedom House,
the "independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of
freedom around the world," rated Egypt "not free" in 2011. It gave Egypt
a "Political Rights Score" of 6 and "Civil Liberties Score" of 5 on a
scale of 1–7, with 1 representing the highest level of freedom and 7
representing the lowest level of freedom.
(Freedom House's office was among the offices of NGOs in Cairo raided
by Egyptian security forces 29 December 2011 for "violation of Egyptian
laws including not having permits."
The raid was condemned by Freedom House as "an unprecedented assault on
international civil society organizations and their local Egyptian
partners.")
In 2000 the related Center for Religious Freedom placed Egypt as partly free at 5; this put them in line with Muslim nations like Turkey and Indonesia. Reporters Without Borders placed Egypt between Bhutan and the Côte d'Ivoire in press freedom.
Freedom of speech
Nabil Maghraby, one of the oldest opinion prisoners in Egypt, was released from prison in 2012, but arrested again in 2013.
The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulate and
govern the press. According to these, criticism of the president can be
punished by fines or imprisonment. Freedom House deems Egypt to have an unfree press, although mentions they have a diversity of sources. Reporters Without Borders 2006 report indicates continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. They place Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms.
The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been
disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation. Freedom House had a
slightly more positive assessment indicating that increased freedom to
discuss controversial issues has occurred.
According to Al Jazeera.net, "in the past few years, independent
Egyptian newspapers have emerged that have proved willing to hold the
rich and powerful elite to account, right up to the presidency. The old
state-owned newspapers are beginning to lose their readership."
In July 2006, the Egyptian parliament passed a new press law. The new
law no longer allows journalists to be imprisoned for comments against
the government but continues to allow fines to be levied against such
journalists. The independent press and the Muslim Brotherhood protested
this law as repressive.
In July 2018, the Egyptian parliament passed the Media Regulation law
which pushed for the regulation of the press in Egypt. This law also
restricts the freedom of speech for journalists.
Although the Egyptian Government rarely bans foreign newspapers, in September 2006, Egypt banned editions of Le Figaro and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
because of their publication of articles deemed insulting to Islam.
According to Al Jazeera, the German newspaper contained an article
authored by the German historian Egon Flaig,
"looking at how the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was a
successful military leader during his lifetime". Al Jazeera quotes the
Egyptian minister of information as saying that he, "would not allow any
publication that insults the Islamic religion or calls for hatred or
contempt of any religion to be distributed inside Egypt."
Following the Arab Spring there was hope for greater freedom of speech in Egypt. However, as of February 2012, television journalist Tim Sebastian reported a "re-emergence of fear" in Egypt.
"Once again, I was told, Egyptians are starting to look
over their shoulder to see who might be listening, to be careful what
they say on the phone, to begin considering all over again who they can
and cannot trust."
“The intelligence services are extremely active,” says a well-known commentator.
The United States State Department
voiced concern in August 2012 about freedom of the press in Egypt,
following a move by the authorities to put two critics of Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi on trial. The State Department also criticized Egypt for actions against Al-Dustour, a small independent newspaper, and the Al-Faraeen channel, both of which have criticized Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In July 2016, Egyptian security forces stormed the home of Liliana Daoud, a Lebanese-British journalist, and whisked her to the airport. Without advance warning, Ms. Daoud found herself on a plane to Lebanon. Before her deportation,
Ms. Daoud was fired from her job at the local private channel just a
few weeks after a pro-Sisi businessman bought it. In August 2018, the
Egyptian government put television host Mohamed al-Ghiety on trial for
interviewing an anonymous gay man. He was later jailed, fined and
sentenced to a year of hard labor.
According to human rights organizations, Egyptian authorities
have banned over 500 people, most of which are activists, from travel
at Egyptian airports since July 2013.
Amnesty International said Egyptian authorities are increasingly using arbitrary and excessive probation measures as a way to harass activists.
They have been imposed extreme conditions in some cases, where
activists released from prison forced to spend up to 12 hours a day in a
police station. Police probation in Egypt requires released prisoners and detainees to spend a certain number of hours at a police station daily or weekly. Amnesty International
has documented at least 13 cases in which probation measures were
excessive or were arbitrarily imposed against activists. In some cases,
activists are detained for a second time as a probation ways. Amnesty
International called the Egyptian authorities to lift all arbitrary probation measures and order the immediate and unconditional release of activists who have been detained.
In late 2017, the Egyptian police cracked down on the selling of a
toy dubbed 'Sisi's testicles' or 'Sisi's pendulum', used by children to
mock the president. The police "arrested 41 clacker sellers and seized
1,403 pairs of the 'offensive' toy," according to local daily al-Masry
al-Youm.
On 10 March 2020, a human rights lawyer Zyad el-Elaimy, was imprisoned for a year and fined 20,000 Egyptian pounds.
He was charged for “spreading false news with an intent to spread panic
among the people and for disturbing public peace”, during an interview
with BBC in 2017. However, the Amnesty International
rights group said that el-Elaimy was unlawfully charged for speaking
publicly about politically motivated imprisonment, enforced
disappearance and torture in Egypt.
On 18 March 2020, four human rights activists, concerning grave conditions of prisons amidst coronavirus outbreak, called for the release of patrons imprisoned for their political views. However, the Egyptian authorities instead held captive the demonstrators and charged them of spreading the hoax narrative, whilst violating the country's protest ban.
On 23 June 2020, the Amnesty International reported that Egyptian security forces abducted human rights defenderSanaa Seif
from outside the Public Prosecutor’s office in New Cairo. She
reportedly visited the office to file a complaint against a violent
assault, which she and her family suffered outside the Tora Prison
Complex the previous day. Sanaa Seif’s brother and a famous human rights
activist, Alaa Abd El-Fattah
remains in arbitrary detention at the Tora prison, since September
2019. The report revealed that Sanaa was taken to the office of the
Supreme State Security Prosecution in Cairo, where the prosecutors
questioned her over the charges of “disseminating false news”, “inciting
terrorist crimes” and “misuse of social media”.
Freedom of religion
Islam
is the official state religion of Egypt. However, as Egypt is not a
shariah state, Islam is not practiced by Law and the practice of
Christianity or Judaism does not present a conflict. According to a 2003
US State Department report, "members of the non-Muslims worship without
harassment. The government has made efforts toward greater religious pluralism and Christians are a significant minority who have served in government. Coptic Christmas (January 7) has been a national holiday since 2002.
That said, intolerance at a cultural and political level remains according to two US-based sources. Islam is the state religion and the government controls the major mosques. There have been disputes between Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria
and the government. Christians have found the building and repair of
churches, however, to be problematic. Government regulations dating from
Ottoman times require non-Muslims to obtain presidential decrees before
building or repair a place of worship. Although in 1999 President Mubarak
issued a decree making repairs of all places of worship subject to a
1976 civil construction code, in practice Christians report difficulty
obtaining permits. Once permits have been obtained, Christians report
being prevented from performing repairs or building by local
authorities.
However, new legislation was passed in September 2016 that now grants
permits to churches for rebuilding regardless of the number of
Christians in the neighborhood, a law that has been applauded by various
Christian Members of Parliament.
Human Rights Watch also indicates issues of concern. For example, they discuss how the law does not recognize conversion from Islam to other religions. According to a poll by the PewResearchCenter in 2010, 84 percent of all Egyptian Muslims polled supported the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion. Human Rights Watch also mentions strict laws against insulting Islam, Christianity or Judaism and detention for unorthodox sects of Islam, such as Ahmadiyya. In 1960, Bahá'í institutions and community activities were banned by Presidential decree of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
All Bahá'í community properties, including Bahá'í centers, libraries,
and cemeteries, were subsequently confiscated. Bahá'ís are also not
allowed to hold identity cards, and are thus, among other things, not
able to own property, attend university, have a business, obtain birth,
marriage and death certificates. This ban had not been rescinded as of
2003. In 2001, 18 Egyptian Bahá'ís were arrested on "suspicion of
insulting religion" and detained several months without being formally
charged.
On 6 April 2006, the Administrative Court ruled in favour of
recognising the right of Egyptian Bahá'ís to have their religion
acknowledged on official documents." However, on 15 May 2006, after a government appeal, the ruling was suspended by the Supreme Administrative Court.
On December 16, 2006, only after one hearing, the Supreme
Administrative Council of Egypt ruled against the Bahá'ís and stating
that the government may not recognize the Bahá'í Faith in official
identification numbers.
The ruling left Bahá'ís unable to obtain the necessary government
documents to have rights in their country unless they lie about their
religion, which conflicts with Bahá'í religious principle.
Bahá'ís cannot obtain identification cards, birth certificates, death
certificates, marriage or divorce certificates, or passports. Without those documents, they cannot be employed, educated, treated in hospitals, or vote, among other things.
In 2008, a Cairo court ruled that Bahá'ís may obtain birth certificates
and identification documents, so long as they omit their religion on
court documents.
An Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity, Mohammed Beshoy Hegazy
has recently sued the Egyptian government to change his religion from
Islam to Christianity on his official ID card. Earlier this year,
Egyptian courts rejected an attempt by a group of Christians who had
previously converted to Islam but then returned to Christianity and then
sought to restore their original religion on their ID cards. The case
is currently before an appeals court. The most recent violations of human rights towards Christians include the Nag Hammadi massacre which occurred in January 2010, and the 2011 Alexandria bombing which occurred on January 1, 2011.
In October 2012, a number of legal cases against Egyptians,
particularly Christians, were filed because the defendants allegedly
showed contempt for Islam. The large number of Islamists on the panel
to draft the Egyptian constitution after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian Revolution
has led to concern by non-Muslims and liberals. Rights groups have
said that Islamic conservatives have felt emboldened by the success of
the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi
Nour, and other Islamic groups in the Egyptian elections, and have been
more bold in imposing their standards on other Egyptians. In one
example, an Egyptian teacher cut the hair of two 12-year-old students
because they didn't wear a Muslim headscarf.
The Amnesty International published a report denouncing the
silence of the Egyptian Authority on the attacks committed by the
so-called Islamic State against the Coptic Christians in North Sinai.
Between 30 January and 23 February, seven Coptic Christians were
murdered there. Before the last attack in February, a Sinai armed group
of ISIS broadcast a video message threatening the lives of Copts and
claiming responsibility for bombing of a Cairo
church in December 2016 that killed at least 25 people. Due to the
latest attacks in Egypt, at least 150 Coptic Christian families have
fled al-Arish, seeking shelter in the neighborhood of Ismailia. As the report mentioned, Majid Halim fled al-Arish
to Cairo with seven of his family members after his father, who runs a
stationery shop in al-Arish, had received many threats over the past two
years, and his photo had been published on Facebook pages alongside a
message inciting violence against Coptic Christians and demanding that
they had to leave the town. On 22 February 2017, Nabila's son in law,
Sameh Mansour, was told by his neighbor that two masked men came to his
home and knocked on his door while he was out making arrangements the
burial of his two relatives murdered by ISIS. That same day one of his
neighbors, Kamel Abu Romany, who lived 150 meters away from Mansour's
house, was also killed by armed gunmen. Mansour, therefore, fled with
his family leaving his house and his job. Now he lives in temporary
accommodation in Ismailia, and tries to place his young children in new
schools in Ismailia.
Status of religious and ethnic minorities
From December 31, 1999 to January 2, 2000, 21 Coptic Christians were killed by an angry mob in Al-Kosheh. Al-Ahram in part cites economic resentment as the cause, but discusses Muslims who condemned the action. A Coptic organization saw it as a sign of official discrimination. In 2005 a riot against Copts occurred in Alexandria.
Privately owned and government-owned newspapers publish anti-Semitic articles and editorials.
On May 19, 2016, a prominent Coptic worker for Amnesty
International, Mina Thabet, was arrested for 'inciting terrorist attacks
on police stations, despite reports of paltry evidence.
Status of women
The Ministry of Health issued a decree in 1996 declaring female circumcision unlawful and punishable under the Penal Code, and according to UNICEF the prevalence of women who have had this procedure has slowly declined from a baseline of 97% of women aged 15–49 since 1995. According to a report in the British Medical JournalBMJ,
"[t]he issue came to prominence...when the CNN television news channel
broadcast a programme featuring a young girl being circumcised by a
barber in Cairo. ...Shocked at the images shown worldwide, the Egyptian
president was forced to agree to push legislation through the People's
Assembly to ban the operation". Despite the ban, the procedure continues to be practiced in Egypt and remains controversial. In 2006, Al-Azhar University
lecturers Dr. Muhammad Wahdan and Dr. Malika Zarrar debated the topic
in a televised debate. Dr. Zarrar, who objected to the procedure,
said..."Circumcision is always brutal...I consider this to be a crime,
in terms of both religious and civil law". Dr. Wahdan defended the
partial removal of the clitoris for girls who Muslim doctors determine
require it, saying it prevents sexual arousal in women in whom it would
be inappropriate such as unmarried girls and spinsters. He cited Muslim
custom, Islamic law, and a study reporting that the procedure is a
determinant of chastity in Egyptian girls. He also blamed the
controversy about the procedure on the fact that the "West wants to
impose its culture and philosophy on us". The ban was controversial in the medical community as well. In the debates leading up to the ban, a gynecologist at Cairo University,
said that "Female circumcision is entrenched in Islamic life and
teaching," and, "called on the government to implement training
programmes for doctors to carry out the operation under anaesthesia.
Another doctor reportedly said, "If my daughter is not circumcised no
man is going to marry her." Other MDs opposed the ban stating that the,
"trauma of the operation remains with the girl for the rest of her
life,..."[disputing] the argument that the procedure prevents women from
"moral deviation," and argued that it is not, "a legitimate medical
practice, and when it is conducted by untrained people it frequently
results in infection and other medical problems..."
In 2017 Cairo was voted the most dangerous megacity for women with more than 10 million inhabitants in a poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Sexual harassment was described as occurring on a daily basis.
According to the Human Rights Watch
2019 report, 69 Egyptian women were imprisoned because of peaceful
demonstrations in 2018. The detainees were subjected to enforced
disappearance, imprisonment, humiliation, and harassment inside the
detention centres.
They were not provided with food and medicine in a proper way and were
not allowed to meet their families. Since 2013, more than 2,500 women
have been arrested arbitrarily.
Child labor
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor's report Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor
in Egypt stated that "children in Egypt are engaged in child labor,
including in agriculture and domestic service" and that "the Government
has not addressed gaps in its legal and enforcement framework to protect
children". Statistics in the report show that 6.7% of Egyptian children
aged 5 to 14 are working children and that 55% of them work in
agriculture.
In December 2014, the department's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor mentioned 2 goods produced under such working conditions: cotton and limestone.
Quarrying limestone has been determined by national law as a hazardous
activity. Efforts to reduce child labor have increased. For example,
from April 1, 2016 to April 30, 2018 the International Labor
Organization embarked on a project combating child labor in Egypt.
In 2018, the Ministry of Social Solidarity provided financial aid to
over 1.6 million people to help fund childhood education in order to
decrease the amount of child labor.
Status of homosexuals
Homosexuality is considered taboo.
Until recently, the government denied that homosexuality existed in
Egypt, but recently official crackdowns have occurred for reasons felt
to include the desire to appease Islamic clerics, to distract from
economic issues, or as a cover-up for closet homosexuals in high places.
In 2002, 52 men were rounded up on the Queen Boat,
a floating nightclub, by police, where they were beaten and tortured.
Eventually 29 were acquitted and 23 were convicted for "debauchery and
defaming Islam" and sentenced for up to five years in prison with hard
labor. Since the trial was held in a state security court, no appeal was
allowed. A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood,
a political party rising in popularity in Egypt, condemns
homosexuality, saying, "From my religious view, all the religious
people, in Christianity, in Judaism, condemn homosexuality," he says.
"It is against the whole sense in Egypt. The temper in Egypt is against
homosexuality." A government spokesman said the Queen Boat incident was
not a violation of human rights but, "actually an interpretation of the
norms of our society, the family values of our society. And no one
should judge us by their own values. And some of these values in the
West are actually in decay."
According to a report in the Egyptian press, "the government
accuses human rights groups of importing a Western agenda that offends
local religious and cultural values. Rights groups deny this claim, but
independent critics argue that it's not void of some truth. Citing the
failure of these groups to create a grass-roots movement, critics point
to "imported" issues such as female genital mutilation and gay rights as
proof that many human rights groups have a Western agenda that seems
more important than pressing issues that matter to ordinary
Egyptians—such as environmental, labour, housing and educational
rights," and says that the issues brought up at the press conference to
launch the above report,
"reminded some in the audience of US efforts to impose its own vision of
democracy in Egypt as part of the US administration's plan for a
Greater Middle East."
Status of Palestinians
Palestinians who lived in the Gaza Strip
when Israel came into being were issued with Egyptian travel documents
which allowed them to move outside of the Gaza Strip, and Egypt.
Their status as refugees has been deteriorating rapidly since the
1970s. After 1948 they were allowed rights similar to Egyptian
nationals, and in 1963 they were allowed to own agricultural land, nor
did they have to acquire work visas. In 1964 the government decreed that
Palestinian refugees had to obtain an exit visa, an entry visa or a
transit visa. In 1976 a law was passed stating that no foreigners could
own real property, although Palestinians were later granted the right to
own agricultural land. In 1978 the ability of Palestinians to work in
the civil service was revoked. Gradually the process of attaining travel
documents for Palestinians has become more difficult. Jordanian Palestinians who hold two year passports are now required to obtain entry and exit visas to travel to Egypt.
President Anwar Sadat
enacted a law banning Palestinian children from attending public
schools. He enacted Law 48, banning Palestinian workers from employment
in the public sector. Palestinians came under surveillance by Egyptian
security services after the 1978 assassination Egyptian Minister of
Culture Yusuf al-Sibai by the Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal.
Egypt has been accused of practicing apartheid against
Palestinian residents by refusing to grant them the opportunity to
become citizens.
Conditions for detainees and torture
According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
in 2011, 701 cases of torture at Egyptian police stations have been
documented since 1985, with 204 victims dying of torture and
mistreatment.
The group contends that crimes of torture occur in Egyptian streets in
broad daylight, at police checkpoints, and in people's homes in flagrant
violation of the people's dignity and freedom.`
A 2005 report of the National Council for Human Rights, chaired by former UN secretary-general and former Egyptian deputy prime minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
cites instances of torture of detainees in Egyptian prisons and
describes the deaths while in custody of 9 individuals as, "regrettable
violations of the right to life." The report called for "an end to [a]
state of emergency, which has been in force since 1981, saying it
provided a loophole by which the authorities prevent some Egyptians
enjoying their right to personal security."
According to an Al-Jazeera
report, the Council asked government departments to respond to
complaints, but "The Interior Ministry, which runs the police force and
the prisons, ...answered [only] three out of 75 torture allegations."
The council also recommended that President Hosni Mubarak, "issue a decree freeing detainees...in bad health."
In February 2017, Amnesty International's
report accused the Egyptian authority of violating human rights. On
February 9, 2017, El Nadeem Center for rehabilitation of victims of
violence was shut down. The shutdown of the center was considered
another shocking attack on civil society since it offers supporting
victims of torture and other ill-treatment and families of people
subjected to enforced disappearances in the country, which should have
been given support not punishment over carrying out its values. As the
report suggested, the shutdown of the center follows a year of
harassment by the authorities on human rights activists; yet the center
made a judicial appeal against the decision. The police carried out the
latest raid without waiting for the outcome of this appeal, however.
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies documented 39 people who
have been executed since December 2017. These individuals were mostly
civilians who were convicted under military jurisdiction which is in
violation of International human rights standards.
Welcome parades,
in which new prisoners are physically and psychologically abused while
crawling between two lines of policemen, is a torture technique used in
Egyptian prisons. In September 2019 during the 2019 Egyptian protests, blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah and his lawyer Mohamed el-Baqer of the Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms were subjected to welcome parades in Tora Prison following their 29 September arrests.
In March 2020, according to Breitbart News, an Egyptian NGO reported that Egypt has been carrying out torture of children they have detained. According to a 43-page report “‘No One Cared He Was A Child’: Egyptian Security Forces’ Abuse of Children in Detention,” by HRW
and a rights group namely, Belady, grave abuse against 20 children aged
between 12 and 17 at the time of arrest have been committed. The report
states that out of 20 children, 15 were tortured in pre-trial detention
at the time of interrogation.
On May 18, 2020, HRW
accused Egyptian authorities of holding thousands of people in
pre-trial detention without a pretence of judicial review because of
closure of courts amidst the covid-19 pandemic.
Extrajudicial executions
Since
2015 at least 1,700 people have been reported to have disappeared. Most
of the victims were abducted from the streets or from their homes and
were forcibly isolated from both family and legal aid. Police forces
have carried out multiple extrajudicial executions.
An investigative report by Reuters news agency published in March 2019 cited figures provided by the Egyptian Interior Ministry's
statements from 1 July 2015 to the end of 2018: "In 108 incidents
involving 471 men, only six suspects survived... That represents a kill
ratio of 98.7 percent. Five members of the security forces were
killed.... Thirty seven were injured." The Reuters' analysis of the
ministry's statements found that in total "465 men killed in what the
Interior Ministry said were shootouts with its forces over a period of
three and a half years." The killings began in the aftermath of the
assassination of Egypt's chief persecutor Hisham Barakat, who was an ally of president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The Human Rights Watch in its May 2019 report accused the Egyptian military and police forces of committing serious abuses against civilians in the Sinai Peninsula.
HRW's investigation revealed that thousands of people have been killed
since 2013 and crimes including mass arbitrary arrests, enforced
disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and possibly unlawful
air and ground attacks against civilians have been prevailing.
The Egyptian army has denounced the accusations, claiming that some
politicised organisations are trying to tarnish the image of Egypt and
its military through "fabricating" such reports.
International complicity
In its World Report 2019 Human Rights Watch stated: "Egypt's international allies continue to support Egypt's government and rarely offer public criticism."
Less than two years after taking power in a military coup, Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi was "embraced" by Western leaders, according to the Financial Times
(FT). FT stated that "Western leaders should think hard before taking
their rapprochement with the field marshal further. President Sisi is
ruthlessly attempting to eliminate his opponents, notably the Muslim
Brotherhood group, filling Egypt's jails on an unprecedented scale."
After they had supported former ruler Hosni Mubarak for decades, the
U.S. and its allies were again choosing the status quo in a context in
which "the regime [went] beyond anything witnessed in Egypt in the
[previous] century, not even during Gamal Abdel Nasser's time."
Luigi Manconi, former president of the human rights commission in
the Italian Senate, said that Western governments had overlooked
Egypt's human rights record under both Mubarak's and El-Sisi's
presidencies "because of the country's geopolitical, economic and
strategic importance." With Egypt, the Italian energy company Eni,
was in the midst of planning the largest developing project of an oil
field in the Eastern Mideterranean when the Regeni case broke the news.
Manconi stated: "An economic relationship like that which Eni is
pledging to Egypt and Egypt is pledging ENI, although we might dislike
it, is infinitely more powerful than the death of a 28-year-old
Italian."
"By and large, the international community has now rallied around Egypt's latest strongman once again," wrote journalist and author Jack Shenker, recalling how in 2015 he watched the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi address Sisi at a major economic conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, stating, "Your war is our war, and your stability is our stability." Egypt was a key partner in the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme during the Bush-era War on Terror.
"If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan,"
explained CIA agent Robert Baer at the time. "If you want them to be
tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear –
never to see them again – you send them to Egypt." While Barack Obama described the El-Sisi regime as "the most repressive in Egyptian history", Donald Trump labelled his Egyptian counterpart 'a fantastic guy'.
In a report on human rights in Egypt, journalist and blogger Wael Iskandar stated that there was an international complicity with the repressive government in Egypt. When U.S. undersecretary Mike Pompeo
visited Egypt on 19 January 2019, he outlined President Donald Trump's
"America First" vision of an assertive US role in the Middle East for
his audience at the American University in Cairo, adding that "America
is a force for good in the Middle East. Period." Pompeo's speech,
commented Iskandar,
made no reference to advancing
human rights or democracy, nor to alleviating widespread poverty or
reining in brutal police states—all issues at the heart of the Arab
uprisings in 2011, and which appear even more out of reach in Egypt
today than they did eight years ago. His speech indicated the US would
effectively endorse crackdowns on the freedoms of citizens in the Arab
world, such as that taking place in Egypt today, in order to pursue its
animosity towards Iran and whatever else it perceives as in its best
interests.
This unprecedented state of repression would not have been possible
without Sisi's internal consolidation of power within Egypt's state
institutions since 2013, winning the support and complicity of the
United States and the European Union (EU) along with the financial
backing of Egypt's Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and the increasingly permissive international and
regional environment for autocrats and authoritarians, firmly embraced
by President Trump, outlined in Pompeo's Cairo speech.
The Gulf states committed their support for the Egyptian government
and recognised its government, including their provision of massive
economic support packages. French president Emmanuel Macron refused to speak about Egypt's human rights record in October 2017. Egypt was the largest recipient of arms from France between 2013 and 2017. Germany sold Egypt a submarine and Siemens made a deal to build a power station in the country.
In January 2019, CBS News
stated that "American taxpayers send more foreign aid to Egypt than to
any other nation except Israel. But America's nearly one and a half
billion dollars a year is going to a regime accused of the worst abuses
in Egypt's modern history."
Since 1948 the U.S. has provided Egypt with $77.4 billion in foreign
aid. Because of worsening human rights conditions under El-Sisi, the
U.S. suspended its aid, but resumed aid under Obama to help the Egyptian
government fight ISIS
in the country. The main priority of the US president and the military
is not "to fight terrorism and improve governance," said Tom Malinowski,
assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour
from 2014 to 2017, at the Senate hearing on 25 April 2019. The
government's priority "has been to make sure that what happened in 2011
in the Tahrir square uprising can never ever, ever, ever happen again
... the Trump administration, like Sisi, is less interested in
countering ISIS than in continuing its relationship with the Egyptian
military."
When asked about the 2019 Egyptian constitutional referendum
on new amendments, the US president Donald Trump said that he did not
know about it and that what he knew was that "Mr. Sisi is doing a great
job." Trump's support of el-Sisi "in the midst of what many analysts are
calling a 'power grab', stated Howard LaFranchi of The Christian Science Monitor,
"is just one of a growing number of signs of the Trump administration's
disenchantment with policies of democracy promotion and increasing
preference for authoritarian rule for stabilizing a volatile Middle
East." Trump's support of el-Sisi's authoritarian rule, along with his support of general Khalifa Haftar in Libya,
concludes LaFranchi, is aligned with US priorities in the Arab world,
among them "stability in a key region for the global economy." Thus its
shift to take a back seat and let regional powers play a major role in
shaping outcomes.
The U.S. State Department
2018 annual report (released in March 2019) on human rights in Egypt
cited abuses which included "arbitrary or unlawful killings by the
government or its agents, forced disappearances and torture." The United
States, according to a special report by Reuters,
which investigated some of the killings carried out by the Egyptian
forces against "suspected militants in disputed gun battles," released a
US$195-million
military aid package to Egypt which had been withheld "in part because
of concerns over Egypt's human rights record. US officials' [reasoned]
that security cooperation with Egypt is important to US national
security."
On 30 April 2019, the BBC reported that the White House had made a move to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
The move by the Trump adminisration came after a request made by
president Sisi during his visit to the US earlier in the month. Shadi
Hamid, who studies Islamist movements at Brookings Institution's
Centre for Middle East Policy, said: "As a factual matter, the Muslim
Brotherhood is not a terrorist organisation. There is not a single
American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them
as a terrorist group." There is a unanimous position, Hamid asserted,
that such a designation is inaccurate.
While the Egyptian government has been accused of a human rights
crisis, Egypt announced that it would host the 64th Ordinary Session of
the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in April 2019. Human Rights Watch's
director for Middle East and North Africa Michael Page said, "Egypt is
trying to appear like a country open for human rights delegates and
sessions while, at the same time, crushing all dissenting voices and its
once-vibrant human rights community. We know that many Egyptian and
international organizations are not allowed to work freely in Egypt and
cannot voice concerns without severe retaliation from the government."
In February, several human rights organizations including the Human Rights Watch called the European Union to ascertain the implementation of the 2013 pledge that focuses on addressing human rights violations in Egypt and review EU’s relation with Egypt. Amnesty
Italia launched a campaign to halt Italy’s arms sales to Egypt. Human
Rights Watch criticized Italy’s possible arms deal of €11 billion with
Egypt. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said that the deal has not been finalized yet.
