Updates:

LCHR conducted a fact-finding mission to Cairo in late October, 2007. During the trip, groundbreaking human rights and civil society trainings were conducted.

Everyday indignities plague the vast majority of Egyptians, and especially the nation’s minorities.  The Coptic Christians, Egypt’s largest ethno-religious minority, are restricted from worshipping freely and face ongoing discrimination.  Converts to Christianity are specifically targeted.  Meanwhile, Egypt's Bahá’ís are not even recognized as a legitimate faith group; as a result, they are unable to obtain national identification cards needed to access basic citizenship rights, including employment, education, medical and financial services, freedom of movement and security of property.  Bedouins, too, have been marginalized by the government and pushed to the edges of society.  Egypt’s youth, too, are precluded from a viable future by the corruption of the Egyptian government, which feathers the nest of its own without addressing the suffering of the masses.

Advocates of political reform are perhaps the government’s favorite target.  Consider the cases of Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Ayman Nour.  Dr. Ibrahim, imprisoned on false charges in 2000 and later released and acquitted following the international outcry of the human rights community, has again been singled out for harassment for his civil society activism as founder and director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies.  A smear campaign is ongoing in government-owned media outlets, which have labeled the Ibn Khaldun Center the “Son of Zion” Center.

Meanwhile, Nour, who ran against Mubarak in the country’s first “open” presidential election, remains in a Cairo jail more than two years after his wrongful imprisonment.  His wife, Gameela Ismail, has repeatedly begged for his release due to his failing health.  Her pleas and those of the international community fall on the deaf ears of a callous regime.