US embassy cable - 05CAIRO2733

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 002733 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2015 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, PREL, EG 
SUBJECT: MIXED REVIEWS OF HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL'S FIRST 
ANNUAL REPORT 
 
REF: 04 CAIRO 9089 (NOTAL) 
 
Classified by ECPO Counselor John P. Desrocher for reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  (C)  Summary:  After several months of delay, the 
National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) has completed its 
first annual report on the state of human rights in Egypt. 
After review by the Presidency, the document is expected to 
be released next week.  Our discussions with NCHR contacts 
suggest conflicting views from within the organization about 
the credibility and usefulness of the report.  Many NCHR 
members give the report high marks, but one usually reliable 
contact told us that the report has been "cooked" by the GOE. 
 We will have to wait until the report is actually released 
to make our own judgment about the degree to which the report 
strengthens or weakens the NCHR's credibility and furthers 
human rights transparency in the Arab world.  End summary. 
 
2.  (C)  In a poll of five NCHR members, the majority 
expressed confidence that the report would demonstrate 
progress on human rights in Egypt.  Hafez Abou Se'ada, the 
head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told us 
that he was "very pleased with the result."  Abou Se'ada 
noted that the executive summary took a "glass half-full" 
approach, indicating where the GOE was making progress in the 
struggle for human rights.  Abou Se'ada said that the 
references to specific human rights violations, which serve 
as evidence of the GOE's inadequate human rights safeguards, 
were confined to the body of the report.  He assured us that 
the body of the report addressed many of the issues that 
occupy the Department's Country Report on Human Rights, 
including torture, deaths in custody, and the Emergency Law. 
 
3.  (C)  Hossam Badrawi, a reformist within the National 
Democratic Party (NDP), said the report merited a "B plus." 
He assured us that "we did not leave anything out."  Ossama 
Al-Ghazzali Harb, an NDP member who also works for the 
Al-Ahram Center for Security and Political Studies, argued 
that NCHR members had their reputations to uphold, and that 
none of them would "sit still in the face of a wishy-washy 
report."  According to Harb, "the segments that 
matter--Emergency Law, political rights, torture, prison 
conditions, freedom of expression--are all very candid and 
critical."  Harb also noted that the GOE-dominated press 
would likely "concentrate on the positive," and focus on the 
elements of the report that showed the GOE in a favorable 
light. 
 
4.  (C)  Munir Fakhry Abdel Nour, a businessman and 
opposition (Wafd) Member of Parliament said that the report 
was deeply critical of the GOE, and he had been surprised by 
initial press reports, in Al-Ahram and elsewhere, that said 
that the report would show that the human rights situation in 
Egypt was improving.  Nour also observed that "many of us did 
not read the report thoroughly."  He explained that a 
committee had prepared the draft, and then members had been 
invited one week before the final review to examine the draft 
at the NCHR offices.  Draft copies were not circulated to the 
members.  Nour said that few members actually had read the 
draft prior to the final review meeting.  Nour, a prominent 
Coptic Orthodox Christian, also touched on the issue of 
religious freedom.  Only after he completed the review 
session, he said, had he suddenly realized that he couldn't 
remember if the report addressed the issues of religious 
minorities.  "We did indeed receive tens of complaints on 
problems surrounding church permits and renovations, but I 
did not notice if this was included in the body of the report 
or not."  Comment:  We find Nour's self-described lack of 
attention to issues of religious freedom puzzling given that 
he is widely seen by the NCHR's boosters as having an 
informal responsibility within the NCHR for Coptic issues. 
End comment. 
 
5.  (C)  Finally, we also spoke with independent human rights 
activist Bahey Eddin Hassan, of the Cairo Institute for Human 
Rights Studies.  Hassan was much gloomier than the others. 
According to his information, the report was drafted by two 
main authors.  Hassan said that Deputy Minister of Justice 
Sana Khalil drafted the sections of the report that dealt 
with Egyptian constitutional and legislative matters 
pertaining to human rights.  Hassan said that the section of 
the report covering specific human rights violations was 
drafted by an unnamed researcher who works for the Arab 
Organization for Human Rights, a pro-government NGO headed by 
NCHR member Ambassador (ret'd) Mohamed Fayek.  Hassan said 
that his understanding was that NCHR Vice-President Dr. Kamal 
Aboul Magd, a former minister of information, closely 
controlled the drafting process and "at the end of the day 
(he) took everything and cooked it." 
 
6.  (C)  Hassan, who formerly headed the NCHR's Cultural 
Rights Committee, noted that under his leadership, the 
Committee had drafted a paper for inclusion in the annual 
report addressing how Al-Azhar University discriminates 
against non-Muslim Egyptians and supports confiscation of 
religiously-objectionable publications through its Islamic 
Research Council.  Hassan said that although the Cultural 
Rights Committee had unanimously recommended that this 
information be included in the final draft, Vice President 
Aboul Magd chose instead to shelve it without any discussion 
or debate by the Council as a whole.  Hassan noted that his 
dismay at this episode had led him to decline to chair the 
Cultural Rights Committee for a second term.  He said that he 
thinks many NCHR members are increasingly disappointed with 
the Council and that he is reconsidering his association with 
the organization. 
 
7.  (C)  Comment:  NCHR President Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the 
former U.N. Secretary General, told Ambassador Welch in 
December 2004 (reftel) that the NCHR's "credibility would 
depend on what we say in our first annual report."  The 
contradictory opinions of our NCHR contacts suggest that we 
will need to review the actual text before we can offer a 
definitive analysis.  Regardless of the nature of the 
published report, however, we think that its release should 
spark a useful Egyptian debate on the role of human rights in 
a democratizing society, and may herald an important 
development for the Arab world.  End comment. 
 
 
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GRAY