Wave of Arrests in Egypt: Daily Brief

"Wave of arrests" in Egypt; Lithuania and Romania responsible for allowing torture in secret CIA prisons; UAE activist Ahmed Mansoor jailed for 10 years; Hungary wants to make it a crime to help refugees; Thailand overturns conviction of British human rights investigator; Afghanistan ignoring violence against women; gender discrimination in UK boardrooms; activists still behind bars in Azerbaijan; and Saudi's own goal with driving ban Vogue cover. 

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Egyptian security forces have carried out a "wave of arrests" of peaceful critics of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in dawn raids since early May 2018. The arrests show that criticism and even mild satire apparently "earns Egyptians an immediate trip to prison", said HRW. 

European judges have ruled that Lithuania and Romania violated the rights of two al-Qaeda terror suspects by allowing the CIA to torture them in secret prisons the agency operated in the countries in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. 

The award-winning Emirati human rights activist, Ahmed Mansoor, has been jailed for 10 years and given a stiff fine for allegedly "insulting the status and prestige" of the United Arab Emirates. Mansoor was arrested in March last year and has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest. 

A new draft law in Hungary would make it a crime to help refugees and asylum seekers in the country. 

A court in Thailand has overturned the conviction on criminal defamation charges of the British human rights worker Andy Hall, who had been investigating abuses against migrant workers in the country. 

The government in Afghanistan is still ignoring violence against women, despite a groundbreaking law being passed in 2009. 

Gender discrimination is still very much alive and well in the UK's boardrooms, despite pledges on equality. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on Friday to pardon 634 convicts, but disappointingly excluded dozens of prominent civil and political activists, bloggers, and journalists who remain jailed following politically motivated prosecutions.  

And finally, Saudi Arabia has committed a social media own goal by allowing a Saudi princess to grace a cover of Vogue to mark the imminent lifting of the Kingdom's ban on women driving, at a time when several prominent women's rights activists have just been thrown into prison for their campaigning on this issue. 

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