Egypt should immediately halt deportations of Eritrean asylum seekers to their home country, where they face detention and the risk of torture. Egypt has forcibly returned home more than 45 Eritrean migrants on several flights in the past two weeks without first providing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the required opportunity to interview [...]

Tags: Egypt, Israel

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Israel and Egypt should open their borders to permit humanitarian aid to reach Gaza and to allow civilians to seek safety from the conflict, Human Rights Watch said today, on the occasion of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, addressing the United Nations Security Council.
Link to HRW

Tags: Egypt, Israel

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Egypt should under no circumstances deport Eritrean asylum seekers now in detention without first allowing the UN refugee agency access to assess their refugee claims.
Egyptian authorities are currently detaining around 98 Eritrean migrants in the Nakhil detention center in the North Sinai, near the city of al-Arish. According to one lawyer familiar with their cases, [...]

Tags: Egypt, Eritrea

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Amnesty International calls for the retrial by an ordinary court of 22 people sentenced today by an Emergency Court for their involvement in the violent protests of Mahalla in April 2008.
“Those sentenced today are scapegoats used by the authorities to hide their inability to adequately handle the Mahalla protests and to cover up for their [...]

Tags: Egypt

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Since June 2007, Egyptian border guards have killed at least 32 African migrants trying to cross into Israel, and Israel has forcibly returned at least 139 border crossers to Egypt, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Egypt has detained those returned, not revealed their whereabouts, and reportedly deported some to their home [...]

Tags: Egypt, Israel, UN

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The trial of 49 people before an emergency court for alleged involvement in the violent protests of 6 April 2008 in the city of Mahalla is due to resume on 6 September.
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Egyptian authorities to stop trying individuals before special emergency courts that flout basic guarantees for fair trial.
On [...]

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“Here it is like war for us and back home it is war also, there is no difference.”
“We fled from death but death is after us; we don’t know what is happening to our relatives back home in camps for the displaced. Staying there would have been better than what happened to us”
A Sudanese refugee [...]

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Detainees Held for More Than 90 Days, Allegedly Tortured
Egypt should immediately release six men who have been detained for more than 90 days without charge since their arrests following a workers strike and street protests in Mahalla al-Kobra in April, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called on authorities to suspend the [...]

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The Egyptian authorities are preparing to forcibly return up to 1,200 asylum-seekers to Eritrea. This follows the deportation of 200 people on Thursday evening and 200 others on Wednesday 11 June. Amnesty International has said that the organization fears 180 more might be deported today, late in the evening.
Asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea are at risk [...]

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Judges Ruled Organization’s Closure Contrary to ‘Reality and Law’
Egyptian authorities should immediately remove all restrictions against a labour organization and comply with a court order to legally recognize the workers’ rights group, Human Rights Watch said today.
Link to hrw.org

Tags: Egypt, Trade Unions

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