56 Final Project

In current trends given by reports from international agencies such as Reporters without Borders and Country Watch, Egypt or the Arab Republic of Egypt has seen a trend towards the bottom of global rankings for providing personal freedoms to its citizens. A point of notable failure in providing freedom comes in the abysmal ratings of Egypt’s ability to provide freedom of information, speech, media, and expression. Egypt ranked 158th in social freedom, 162nd in legislative freedom, 168th in both freedom of press and economic freedom, 169th in security for its citizens, and 174th in political freedom by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). All these rankings were calculated out of the rankings of 180 countries. In 2011, Egypt saw massive political upheaval as the country underwent a revolution against the incumbent office of the president which was filled by President Hosni Mubarak who had held the seat of the executive for more thirty years. In this term of presidency, Mubarak was characterized as a “Pharoah,” someone with absolute power in the country and someone who used their power to prevent citizens of Egypt from enjoying personal freedoms, access to information, and routinely used police forces to silence opposition (Affairs 2020). 2011 held the promise that after a brief period of revolution, Egypt would finally see the freedoms the nation had fought to have finally realized. The following regime and the current history of the country give the answer that this dream has died.

During the term of Mubarak before the revolution in 2011, media and information were silenced, except for outlets ran and sponsored by the state to promote state influenced media. In this time, social media, and the ability of citizens to promote information via private channels allowed for the revolution to be well informed. After moves by the following government of Mubarak, the media industry was nationalized to consolidate resources and make the media of Egypt cheaper to maintain. This government, the government lead by Muhammad Morsi and the Islamist party would not last long and the outcome of revolution only a year after Morsi had taken office in 2013, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi led the military armed forces to oust Morsi out of office with the support of the people, who were aggravated by the move towards more Islamist policies by the government that had promised not to do so and the economic downturn occurring within the country. Al-Sisi would be the next president elected to the office of presidency in Egypt and with his ascension into office, the government of Egypt moved to seize the centrally conglomerated media of the country and took control of the news outlets available in the country (CountryWatch 2023). Today, there exists only three state approved newspapers, many independent papers and other online media sites have been censored, taken down, or had their journalists prosecuted and arrested for dissent (RSF 2023).

In the wake of Al-Sisi’s government’s attacks on the freedom of information within Egypt, Egypt has fallen into a crisis of availability of information not only to its citizens but from the country itself. One of the most pressing issues in the country that cannot be addressed is the crisis of Egypt’s overpopulation of its prison systems. In recent estimated reports, Egypt holds a prison population of over 120,000 civilians in a system that is severely underfunded and notoriously overcrowded, unsanitary, and dilapidated (Yee 2023). What’s worse is that for a large portion of the population that finds themselves into the prison system, they have been arrested, charged, and sentenced for crimes of speaking out against government actions, writing opposing perspectives against the state news media, or simply making satire of situations within the country that civilians face, all of these people are considered political prisoners. Latest estimates have these specific “criminals” numbering at more than 60,000 citizens in total within the Egyptian prison system (Yee 2022). All these population figures are only rough estimates provided by nongovernmental organizations and other human rights groups who have limited access to information from Egypt. The reason behind this is because Egypt simply refuses or does not acknowledge the request to produce any information on its prison systems or the figures behind their population demographics and the proportion of citizens sentenced for different crimes. This has human rights groups worried that the environment for information freedom of Egypt is preventing from any form of beneficial aid or international intervention from helping the wellbeing of citizens to better save face for the government of Egypt and its regime (Human Rights Watch 2023). This has also extended to include the arrests of journalists in country, as Egypt has become the highest arrestor of journalists in Africa with more than 25 journalists arrested and in custody currently by the Egyptian authority (RSF 2023).

In reports by human rights organizations, this predicament with the over extension of prison sentencing for activists, journalists and other Egyptian citizens is magnified by the conditions of Egypt’s prison system. Firstly, as of 2021, Egypt has been claimed to have around 78-168 prisons in its system to hold its prisoners, most of these facilities have been built during the past decade, mostly during the presidency of Al-Sisi (Yee 2022, Human Rights Watch 2023). This rush to build prison systems and tear down older complexes is fueled by the government’s high volume of imprisoning citizens. Before most construction began in 2013, Egypt’s prison system could only house 74,000 people, with the recent structure of its prison system, the Egypt now has the capacity to hold several more tens of thousands of citizens in incarceration (Human Rights Watch 2023). Despite the sunk costs of increasing the number of prisons within the country, Egyptian prisons are still running into problems of overcrowding, an issue that even some pro-government officials have begun to speak out against. Firsthand accounts have shown that certain cells housed over fifty people at a time. One of the issues increasing the number of prisoners in these complexes is caused by the government using these prison systems as holding facilities (Deng 2022). Citizens on trial for crimes that they have yet to be committed as guilty wait in these prisons, sometimes months before they are expected to have their case presented in court (Yee 2022). Egypt also has a problem with holding its prisoners for too long for their crimes with some prisoners, especially political dissenters receiving years worth of sentencing for protesting. The overcrowded conditions are not the worst aspect of prison life for citizens in Egypt, it is the treatment of these prisoners by the complexes and the guards that has been accounted as inhumanely harsh and even deadly.

Conditions in the prisons within Egypt are abysmal for the hundreds of thousands of citizens that find themselves detained within the overfilled cells for crimes they have yet to be found guilty on or even tried over. In these conditions, certain prisoners cannot rest for more than four hours at a time with the amount of people being housed in a single cell, some people in these cells die of lack of oxygen or heat stroke in hot conditions(Deng 2022). These imprisoned Egyptians see the inhospitality of their condition continue into the treatment they receive by the complex. Prisoners are fed very poor excuses of meals, for certain political prisoners, all they receive is a single portion of bread with cheese, neither of them safe nor sustaining for consumption. Prisoners also live in poor conditions, some go through months with no light, only a blanket to act as any bedding to sleep on, no fresh air during hot months, no access to toilets, or any warm clothes. The deadliest action taken by the prison authorities has been the widespread denial of prisoners to access basic medical care or any medication, no matter how serious the ailment is. When medical assistance does arrive, it is often too late to do any help to those suffering, prisoners experiencing heart attacks go for hours before being acknowledged by the prison guards and medical staff. Harsh treatment does not stop at the poor conditions of the prisons as many released prisoners have accounted on prisons abusing their populations physically. Guards assault and torture prisoners to attempt to gather information out of them, but often this torture is unprecedented the reports of this systematic abuse of prisoners is commonplace throughout the prison system in Egypt (Yee 2022, Deng 2022).

This outline of the conditions of the Egyptian and its system are crucial to understanding the consequences of allowing the Egyptian government to overextend its authority to arrest its citizens, especially when a large part of the prison population resides in Egypt’s horrible system have been put there for accusations of committing political crimes against the state. Many of these prisoners have been detained for charges alleging them for actions as small and insignificant as liking an antigovernment aimed post or printing out fliers. Actions like these and acts of protest or activism result in thousands of individuals being arrested by the Egyptian government. These individuals go on to serve years long sentences without being prosecuted (Deng 2022). In instances where activists are set free from the prisons on acts of releasement by the government, often they find themselves back within the prison system, charged with crimes they have not committed or for the same crime that had put them into the prison system in the first place (Yee 2022). What makes Egypt’s situation worse is the vast disparity of information of what is happening in the nation. Any figures available that help NGOs and other organizations deal with helping citizens and pressuring other governments into forcing Egypt into at least taking accountability for the actions it has committed are all estimates. Little to no trustworthy information comes from the Egyptian state that is not heavily censored and positive lit towards the government, which makes information from independent sources necessary to stop abuses of government power from hurting and killing civilians (Human Rights Watch 2023).

Among the most discriminated against groups by the Egyptian government’s crackdown against opposition to their authority include journalists and activists. These people are also some of the most vocal of perspectives against the actions of the Egyptian government and contribute to what information can be gathered about the actions of Egypt that account as violations of human rights. Earlier this year, Egypt sentenced 27 individuals who posted and spread awareness of government actions that were considered violations of human rights to sentences starting at fifteen years in prison to full life sentences (Presswire 2023). Journalists also face this threat by the government, if they are not arrested for publishing opposition pieces, they are having their platform completely banned from the country or having their newspapers fully censored (Deutsche Well 2023). When these individuals do have the opportunity to avoid being detained by police at airports while escaping the country, they face the reality that they cannot ever return without facing jail charges. Egyptian officials have denied important documents and identifications to be given to critics of the country unless they return to Egypt, where they are told they will be arrested the moment they step foot into the state (Human Rights Watch 2023). In the past year, the actions of the government against activist movement have reached a swell in activity following demonstrations at the COP27 conference, an event for nations to meet and hold discussions about what can be done to prevent global warming and to fight climate change. Activist not only from Egypt, but from abroad have faced harsh backlash from the government, but now with a more global audience (Presswire Jan 2023).

Activism is not the only problem that Egypt faces trouble for regarding the treatment of people by the government being abuses of state power to threaten and marginalize its people. Groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community face constant challenges as the government allows for police to entrap and falsely incriminate members of the community because the government does not approve of any non-traditionalist lifestyles (Egypt: LGBTQ 2023). Women also face this same marginalizing treatment and crackdown by the government in cases of women protesting of the social treatment they receive in everyday life and by police officials (World 2023). The Egyptian government has also extended this mistreatment to social media influencers who have become too popular or too viral. Several reports over the past year showed the Egyptian government arresting and charging social media influencers with politically charged crimes and even terrorism and prostitution, even when the videos they posted were completely apolitical. Those that received the harshest of punishment for their viral status were women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community (Deng 2023).

Egypt’s revolution in 2011 and the dreams of promoted democracy and extended freedoms for its people now seem like a distant memory to the present regime of the Egyptian government over the past decade. Egypt has become a nation that treats its citizens with constant oppression and uses its broken justice and prison system to wear down activists, journalists and any voice or voter of the political opposition. The actions of the Egyptian government severely limit the ability of the people and media of the country to hold its actions accountable with any information that the state does not approve of. With little information being able to distribute throughout the country due to total lack of freedom of press and media to act independently, Egypt is in a crisis of information freedom. Activists and journalists are the force of Egypt still maintaining the goal to promote informational and media freedom in the country but due to the actions of the government, they have become over imprisoned and worn down by cycles of torture, abuse, and isolation in jail. Without any progress or upheaval in the government in power in Egypt, there may never be any change from this information environment. For the Egyptian people and their hope for freedom to express their opinions and spread information, they must hope for a change that is not stifled like it was after 2011.

Work Cited

Affairs, N., & Schifrin, N. (2020, February 25). Hosni Mubarak, whose autocratic rule launched Egypt’s Arab Spring protests, dies at 91. PBS. Retrieved April 15, 2023, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/hosni-mubarak-whose-autocratic-rule-launched-egypts-arab-spring-protests-dies-at-91

CountryWatch. (2023). Global: Country Review – Personal Freedom. CountryWatch.com. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from http://www.countrywatch.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/intelligence/cwtopic?type=text&countryid=52&topic=POPFR&global=true

Deng, C. (2023, Feb 11). Egypt Arrests Social-Media Influencers in Deepening Crackdown; Egyptians who post viral content, even if it appears apolitical, are increasingly being charged with terrorism. Wall Street Journal (Online) http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/egypt-arrests-social-media-influencers- deepening/docview/2775233610/se-2

Deng, C., & El-Fekki, A. (2022, Oct 06). Egypt Released Hundreds of Political Prisoners This Year; Some Say They Were Tortured; President Sisi released the prisoners ahead of next month’s COP27 meeting in Sharm El Sheikh. Wall Street Journal Online)  http://proxy.lib.ohiostate.edu/loginurl=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/egypt- released-hundreds-political-prisoners-this/docview/2721537220/se-2

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Egypt jails activists for years on ‘terrorism’: rights groups. (2023, Mar 05). AFP International Text Wire in English http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/egypt-jails-activists-years-on-terrorism- rights/docview/2782743507/se-2

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Egypt jails activists for years on ‘terrorism’: rights groups. (2023, Mar 05). AFP International Text Wire in English http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/egypt-jails-activists-years-on-terrorism- rights/docview/2782743507/se-2

Reporters Without Borders. (2023, March 3). Egypt. Bienvenue sur le site de Reporters sans frontières. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://rsf.org/en/country/egypt

World: Rights Groups Urge UN Human Rights Council to Act on Egypt. (2023, Feb 28). Asia News Monitor http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/world-rights-groups-urge-un-human-council- act-on/docview/2780166934/se-2

Yee, V. (2022, Aug 09). ‘A Slow Death’: Egypt’s Political Prisoners Recount Horrific Conditions. The New York Times http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/slow-death-egypt-s-political-prisoners- recount/docview/2700439420/se-2

Yee, V. (2022, Aug 17). Egypt’s Revolving Prison Door: Sudden Freedom for Inmates Who Languished. The New York Times http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login? url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/egypt-s-revolving-prison-door-sudden- freedom/docview/2703661600/se-2