55 Draft: Egypt’s Over-Jailing and Under-Reporting
Introduction:
- Start:
- Egypt as a country ranks low on the indexes of press and political freedom.
- https://rsf.org/en/country/egypt
- Press: 168/180
- Political: 174/180
- Legislative: 162
- Economic: 168
- Social: 158
- Security: 169
- After Events of revolution in 2011, the situation for freedoms fought for in the uprising now seem distant and lost with the current power structure in Egypt
- The worst of the reported insecurities within the country is the ability of political dissidents and journalists to act freely without fear of imprisonment.
Opening Information
- Prisoner Population is unreasonably high proportionally to population
- Political prisoners make an even larger percentage: estimations at 60,000
- Egypt has made substantial arrests for reasons as small as misdemeanors if citizens are attached to political dissent.
- Egypt has problem with arresting journalists as well
- Makes Egypt one of the worst countries in the world, especially in the Middle East for journalists arrested.
- Egypt facing current issues with arresting LGBTQIA+ members with set ups
- Tinder and Grindr Catfishing scams by Police
- Overall persecution
- Arresting of member of this community for fake crimes and jailed for unreasonable times bc of this.
- Treatment in jail is also an issue
Composition Details
- Main Points
- Prison Issues
- Egypt has neglected to provide Human Rights groups with accurate prisoner population numbers
- Egypt’s prisons are facing overcrowding issues
- Egyptian Prisons face neglect and provide terrible conditions
- People have been arrested for satirizing these conditions
- Media Issues
- Journalists covering issues without government approval are being silenced
- Main Issues include:
- Climate
- Prison conditions
- Policy
- Over policing
- Economic disparity
- Lack of independent journals and newspapers allowed to be sold in the country
- Social Issues
- LBTQIA+ discrimination
- Treatment and underrepresentation in media and news
Argument
- Main Point:
- Egypt’s main problem that heavily affects its population is its inability to give a transparent and safe atmosphere for information to be spread
- This is found in its lack of freedom of press, expression, and speech
- But also, in the lack of information about prisons
- Because the prison issue faces all these groups as even rough estimates with data that is available gives an idea that many that are not free to speak and access information are arrested and jailed when they act to achieve that freedom
- Egypt’s revolution has been a failure, now twelve years past
- Freedoms not allowed in previous point prove this
- The stats of comparing Egypt globally also show this
- Egypt has since then not allowed for healthy protesting
- Until Egypt can provide its citizens with these freedoms then it will not be able to live up to the promises of its revolution or be able to serve its people as a democracy
Conclusions
- Egypt has an information problem
- Issues with:
- Jail
- Policing
- Protesting
- Civil Rights
- Political Freedom
- It is not able to provide information on these issues
- Because of treatment of journalists
- Because of no freedom of press
- Because of this issue
- Egypt scores low