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Geneva (February 5, 2018) – On Friday, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an

Geneva (February 5, 2018) -- The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has adopted an Opinion qualifying the detention of 18

On January 25, 2018, the United Nations Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) adopted a draft report following the review of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s human rights record on January 22, 2018. The report contains 230 recommendations made by United Nations Member States to the United Arab Emirates, related to issues including the state’s widespread practices of torture and arbitrary detention.         

Geneva (January 26, 2018) -- Today, several United Nations human rights experts expressed concern over “persistent serious allegations” of unfair trials in Egypt, while calling on the authorities to halt all pending executions.

Geneva (January 25, 2018) – Marking the seven-year anniversary of the beginning of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, the Alkarama Foundation has today published an extensive report on Egypt’s widespread and pervasive crackdown on freedom of expression.  

On January 18, 2018, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (SRFRDX) following the arrest of professor and human rights defender Amine Fadha for Facebook posts in which he criticised the government and the army.

In the morning of January 2, 2018, four men sentenced to death in the Kafr El Sheikh Stadium bombing case following a grossly unfair trial were executed at the Burj Al Arab Prison of Alexandria. The families of Lotfy Ibrahim Ismail Khalil, Ahmed Abdul Hadi Al Seheemy, Sameh Abdullah Mohamed Youssef and Ahmed Abd Al Moenem Salama Ahmed Salama were not officially informed of the date of executions, in violation of Egyptian Criminal Law.

Background

On December 12, 2017, Samir Al Daami, a well-known Iraqi-Norwegian freelance journalist and political commentator, was released after spending nearly two months in prison.

 

“A poem stands accused,

my poem morphs into a crime.

In the land of freedom,

the artist’s fate is prison.”

 

Extract from “A Poet Behind Bars” by Dareen Tatour, translated by Tariq al Haydar