Execution Frenzy Fueling Egypt’s Human Rights Crisis: Daily Brief
Unprecedented rate of executions in Egypt; pro-democracy protests sweeping Eswatini; former South African president Jacob Zuma sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court; UN call for action against systemic police racism; urgent need to repeal draconian anti-terrorism law in Sri Lanka; another independent voice silenced in Hong Kong; how China is undermining academic freedom in Australia; and Belgian newspaper takes a stand against Hungary’s autocratic leadership.
Egypt’s highest appellate court has confirmed 12 death sentences, including for high-profile opposition leaders. Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, Egypt has been executing people at an unprecedented rate, further fuelling the human rights crisis it has created.
Pro-democracy protests sweeping the tiny southern African kingdom of Eswatini have escalated after monarchy and government issued a decree banning the delivery of petitions that called for democratic reforms. The government has denied reports that King Mswati has fled the country.
Former South African president Jacob Zuma has been sentenced to 15 months imprisonment on contempt of court charges, after he defied an order to appear before a corruption inquiry. Zuma's time in power, which ended in 2018, was dogged by graft allegations.
A UN report that analysed racial justice in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in the United States last year concluded that law enforcement officers are rarely held accountable for killing black people, and calls for concrete action “to dismantle systemic racism and police brutality against Africans and people of African descent”.
The Sri Lankan government’s pardon of 16 prisoners convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), however welcome, does not address the urgent need to repeal the draconian law.
With Stand News announcing it will remove opinion articles and stop accepting donations in order to reduce risks under the draconian National Security Law Beijing imposed a year ago, another independent voice is being silenced in Hong Kong.
Tomorrow Human Rights Watch will be launching a report documenting China's long reach of repression undermining academic freedom at Australian universities.
And lastly: Belgian newspaper De Standaard has refused to sell advertising space to Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Victor Orban, because, the paper says, “it is too cynical to sell media space to a government leader who has restricted the free press in his country.”