EU's human rights envoy meets with human rights organizations in Egypt

CAIRO – 14 April 2022: The Arab Network for Digital Media and Human Rights (ANDMHR) participated in a meeting with the EU Human Rights representative for human rights on Wednesday.

Members of ANDMHR, head of the National Council for Human Rights Moushira Khattab, representatives of local human rights organizations, and Egyptian university students attended the meeting with envoy Eamon Gilmore. Khattab emphasized cooperation with the EU as a development partner of Egypt and to spread the culture of human rights in the society, according to a statement by ANDMHR.

She said Egypt is keen on human rights and integrating it in all aspects of life, while Gilmore commented that this is an accumulative process that requires time and effort.

For his part, head of ANDMHR, Mahmoud Basyouni, called on the EU to cooperate with Egypt in combating hate speech and incitement to violence on social media, saying that extremist groups use social media platforms to spread their ideology and recruit young people by posting wrong information that disrupts the relationship between citizens and the institutions of their state.

He asked the EU to treat the issue with all “seriousness” as such groups manipulate the right to free speech in the EU countries to incite violence and spread harmful rumors.  

On Tuesday, the Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives met with Gilmore and the EU ambassador to Cairo.

They tackled the role of the parliament in the national human rights strategy, touching on the amount of political, economic, cultural, and social achievements in Egypt in recent years.