Egyptian activist refutes false info. presented by outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Geneva Seminar

CAIRO – 2 March 2019: President of the Arab Forum for Dialogue and Human Rights Ayman Nasry revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is promoting human rights in a politicized manner in order to gain grounds on international platforms. To do this, the MB has been spreading false figures regarding the human rights situation in Egypt.

In a seminar in Geneva, Switzerland, held March 1, 2019, by the Muslim Brotherhood, in cooperation with Mohamed Zarea, Head of the Arab Organization for Criminal Report within the International Human Rights Council (IHRC), Nasry pressed the brotherhood on the numbers that they have presented and that they repeatedly spread around, wondering aloud how the IHRC accepts the idea of hosting a seminar with a group that is deemed as a terrorist group in a number of countries in the Arab region.

The seminar was attended by Salma Ashraf, the daughter of the fugitive Brotherhood leader Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar, who is a defendent in the Al-Azhar militia case, Khalaf Bayoumi, Director of Al-Shehab Center for Human Rights, and Ahmad Al-Attar, a representative of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms.



The Egyptian activist went on to explain that the IHRC’s acceptance to take part in such seminar flies in the face of the very basis on which international human rights mechanisms are built, arguing that it violates the norm.

Nasry went on to accuse the Arab organization of politicizing an issue that should be driven by morality and humanity rather than gain, supporting his argument with the fact that the organization did not raise the issue of human rights in any where in the Arab world except for Egypt, despite existing in other countries.

He also explained that the Brotherhood presented false information on forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings that contravene the findings of recent United Nations reports on the human rights situation in Egypt. The activist warned that politicizing a humanitarian issues—in order to serve the interest of an outlawed group—bears the danger of reducing the credibility of human rights cases and humanitarian work altogether.

In addressing the seminar, Nasry expressed his surprise in Salma Ashraf, the daughter of the fugitive Brotherhood leader Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar, holding the government responsible for sexual harassment cases, stressing that harassment is an ethical crime associated with social causes, and that the state is working to mitigate such incidents through strict legal mechanism. He added that Egypt’s law criminalized sexual harassment and that harassers have faced trials and been held accountable in many cases in Egypt.


A side of the seminar in Geneva - Press Photo

During his speech, Nasry was cut off a couple of times by Muslim Brotherhood members, to which he noted that he feels that he has truly attended a seminar run by the Muslim Brotherhood as a seminar coordinated by the Arab Organization for Criminal Reform would not lack professional foundations and coordination as the seminar does.

On his part, Zarea ensured that speakers speak to the very end and that they say all that they wished to ensure they are able to expose the lies propagated by the grouped about Egypt with the aim of defaming Egypt's reputation before the international community.