Days before Egypt’s Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights .. Arrests, detentions, and forced deportations of refugees in Egypt on a national scale

Days before Egypt's Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights .. Arrests, detentions, and forced deportations of refugees in Egypt on a national scale

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RPE position statement: ‘Egyptian authorities must implement what they say they are committed to, this must stop now’

The Refugee Platform in Egypt strongly condemns the recent measures taken by Egyptian security services of the Interior Ministry against refugees, migrants, forcibly displaced people, and asylum seekers in Egypt. The Refugee Platform also is deeply concerned about the continuation of systematic arrests and detention operations against refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers of African nationalities nationwide, as well as their forced return to conflict zones and areas where they are at risk of life-threatening danger. The Refugee Platform monitored the situation recently, where the vast majority of the documented cases involved Sudanese citizens and expatriates, as Sudan is struggling with the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. 

These brazen human rights violations are executed despite repeated warnings and condemnations by local and international human rights organizations. All of which pointed out the danger of this continuous and sometimes escalating approach in recent years; while repeatedly stressing that Egyptian authorities need to adhere to their national and international legal obligations towards protecting refugees as well as ensuring that they are not subjected to illegal measures These illegal measures include but are not limited to forced deportations that violate their fundamental human rights in domestic legislation as well as international law.

The recent escalation followed a recurring pattern of systematic arrest campaigns targeting refugees of African nationality, based on skin color and ethnicity, followed by unlawful detention and individual or collective forcible deportation without access to the right to seek asylum or due process. These practices affected asylum seekers, refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), holders of valid residence permits, where the majority of which are newcomers awaiting registration appointments with UNHCR. These violations clearly demonstrate the Egyptian authorities’ continued disregard for national and international laws that obligate them to protect the rights and safety of refugees.

Since last December, and throughout January, the Refugee Platform in Egypt monitored and documented a noticeable increase in the number of reports related to the arrest and detention of dark-skinned people holding various African nationalities in many governorates. The statistics behind these reports indicate that most of those arrested are expatriates with Sudanese or Eritrean citizenship. During this period, the Refugee Platform documented the detention of Sudanese, Eritrean, and Syrian refugees, including women and children in Alexandria, Matrouh, Aswan, and Greater Cairo governorates. 

According to what has been documented, many security agencies affiliated with the Interior Ministry are a part of these operations that adopt a pattern based on arresting people in public places and transportation for varying lengths of time, during which they are prevented from communicating with their families or lawyers. These places include but are not limited to bus and train stations, fixed checkpoints on roads, fixed checkpoints inside refugee communities, and mobile checkpoints inside refugee communities. 

Some of these people may be brought before the Public Prosecution on charges of illegal presence, entering Egypt with an invalid passport, or not holding a valid residence permit in Egypt. The prosecution then decides in this type of case to release the accused due to insufficient evidence and appends ‘the competent administrative authority and its affairs’ to its decision.

This is followed by an inquiry of the detainee through several agencies, including the National Security and Passports, which often ends with the issuance of a deportation decision by the security services represented by the National Security and the General Directorate of Passports, Immigration and Nationality. The detainee is then presented to their embassy to obtain emergency travel documents for those whose documents have been lost or expired. Other security sectors then work to forcibly deport the detainee through border crossings to countries that share borders with Egypt, such as Sudan, or on flights to countries that are further away at the expense of their embassy. 

Sudanese citizens and expatriates make up the largest proportion of those arrested at the border governorate of Aswan and the Upper Egyptian governorates on the Aswan-Cairo highway. Most of these arrests take place at train and bus stations as well as through checkpoints on the road to Cairo. Most of the detainees were on their way to attend a registration interview with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘the interview in which they are officially registered and given a document stating that they are seeking asylum.’ The UNHCR in Egypt tried to open a border office in Aswan a few months after the outbreak of the war in Sudan, in order to receive asylum applications and conduct interviews, but the Egyptian authorities refused. Among the detainees were people holding UNHCR registration cards as refugees or asylum seekers, some of whom were later deported. 

Throughout the past two weeks, the Refugee Platform in Egypt documented two prominent cases of mass arrests. The first case was in the city of Kom Ombo, where police forces arrested a number of people in the vicinity of the city and at the Kom Ombo train station. Some of those arrested were on their way to attend interviews at the UNHCR office, while others were students at Cairo University. They were detained at the Kom Ombo police station in conditions described as inhumane, and the group of people included infants and the elderly. They were later bussed to Abu Simbel, initially informed that their destination was Aswan, but later realized that the goal was to be deported directly to Sudan the next day. 

The second case involved dozens of detainees including ‘individuals and families’ of Sudanese citizens and expatriates who were arrested in the vicinity of Aswan city. The Refugee Platform learned that among them were refugees with valid residency papers and others who had registration appointments with the UNHCR. They were detained at the First Aswan Police Station in harsh and inhumane conditions, according to the testimony of one of the detainees, which was confirmed by visual evidence seen by the platform. This evidence demonstrated the detention of dozens of people who, according to one source, were Sudanese citizens and expatriates, including young men. Nevertheless, most of the visual evidence seen by the platform’s researchers was of girls, women, and children who were detained inside the police station yard, as well as the mosque attached to the yard, in inhumane conditions. Some of these people were later forcibly deported through the Arqin crossing, according to the testimony of one of the deportees. 

In Greater Cairo, the Refugee Platform documented systematic arrests in different boroughs, including Faisal, Al-Haram, Ard al-Liwa, Imbaba, Dokki, and Downtown, as well as the detention of refugees holding Eritrean and Sudanese citizenship. Sudanese citizens and expatriates were forced to sign papers containing statements regarding how their families were requested to book airline tickets for them to Port Sudan, or send them through the Arqin land crossing to Sudan. The Refugee Platform in Egypt also documented the detention of an elderly Sudanese woman at Cairo airport while she was returning from Saudi Arabia and the security authorities told her that a deportation order had been issued against her. Eritrean detainees were forced to sign one-time emergency travel documents to Eritrea, which the Egyptian authorities requested the Eritrean embassy to issue to the detainees for deportation. Anyone who refused to complete this process remained detained in extremely poor detention conditions.

In April 2024, the Refugee Platform released our joint investigation with The New Humanitarian on how military bases are used by the Egyptian authorities to detain Sudanese forcibly displaced people who had to cross the Egyptian border to seek asylum. This investigation examined how these people were detained in poor conditions as well as forcibly and illegally deported in violation of international conventions.  

In the Universal Periodic Review of Egypt’s human rights record, the Refugee Platform in Egypt demanded in our joint report, and in our statement at the preparatory session, that Egypt commits to immediately ceasing the detention and deportation of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers as well as to additionally providing refugees with access to asylum procedures. The Egyptian authorities denied this in their submitted report as well as the existence of detention facilities for refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. All of which is contrary to the testimonies documented by the Refugee Platform and other human rights organizations.

As the new Egyptian asylum law comes into effect, a law which was criticized by human rights organizations and UN special rapporteurs for being inconsistent with international obligations and violating international law as well as basic protection requirements, the Egyptian government promoted it as providing greater legal protection for refugees and guaranteeing them legal protection. Article 13 of the law prohibits the return or forcible return of refugees to their state of nationality or habitual residence, which reflects a clear legal commitment to the principle of non-refoulement, yet this article from the law is explicitly violated through the measures taken against Sudanese citizens who are refugees. This suggests that the practical application of the law demonstrates the exact opposite, while placing the state in a clear position of legal and moral responsibility to correct these violations as well as ensure full compliance with international and domestic laws at the legislative and practical level. This includes stopping the promoting of doctored and misleading narratives to capitalize on the suffering compounded by these procedures. 

The Refugee Platform reiterates that these measures are contrary to Egyptian law and the constitution:

  1. Egyptian law, and the Egyptian constitution, which stipulates respect for fundamental rights and freedoms as well as prohibits arbitrary detention and deportation. 
  2. International conventions, particularly the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Egypt is a signatory and which binds Egypt to principles including non-punishment for unlawful entry and non-detention of refugees.

The Refugee Platform in Egypt recommends the following:

  1. Provide a legal framework that provides basic protection guarantees, specifically protection from detention and deportation for refugees, guarantees the rights of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, and strengthens the associated institutional frameworks. The Egyptian authorities must revise the asylum law for discussion and amendment so that the law adheres to international standards. Additionally, the Egyptian authorities must ensure protection conditions during the implementation of the law against unlawful migration.
  2. Immediately cease systematic arrests of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, enable access to asylum for forcibly displaced people, and abide by the principle of non-punishment for unlawful entry.
  3. Comply with the principle of protection from refoulement and immediately stop deporting, removing, and pushing back refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers to areas where they are at risk of life-threatening dangers.
  4. Conduct transparent and independent investigations into violations against refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers by law enforcement authorities.
  5. Allow the UNHCR to visit detention facilities for refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers in Egypt.
  6. Allow humanitarian groups and human rights organizations access to border areas.
  7. Stop criminalizing refugee, migrant, and asylum seeker rights defenders. 

As a host country for forcibly displaced people, Egypt bears a great responsibility to protect forcibly displaced people and ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect. The continuation of these practices not only reflects a violation of legal obligations, but also harms Egypt’s international image and reputation as a country that respects the rights of refugees.

The Refugee Platform in Egypt calls on the international community and human rights organizations to follow this issue closely, as well as to take all necessary actions to ensure that the Egyptian authorities abide by their commitments. 

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