An Egyptian organisation that documents rights abuses and treats torture victims, including victims of sexual violence, has filed an urgent application to a court in the hope of halting plans by authorities to shut it down.
The director of the Nadeem centre for the rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture told a news conference on Sunday that a health ministry decision to shut it down was part of the toughest crackdown on dissent in Egypt’s modern history.
“This is a political decision,” said Aida Seif el-Dawla. “And it’s coming from the cabinet that represents all the actors that are keen on the survival of this regime, despite the oppression and the torture that the Egyptian people are living through on a daily basis.”
Sources in the health ministry, which issues licences for the Nadeem centre, have said it committed unspecified violations.
Staff of the organisation said on Sunday its complaint to the administrative court argued that it should have been informed of any violations of regulations and given time to rectify them.
The centre would continue to operate, said staff member Suzan Fayad, despite the closure order, which the authorities plan to implement on Monday.
Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the threatened closure, saying it is part of a sweeping crackdown on human rights activists.
“The Egyptian authorities are smothering the country’s leading human rights defenders one by one,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, said last Wednesday. “Closing the Nadeem centre would be a devastating blow to Egypt’s human rights movement as well as victims of abuse.”
In 2003, Human Rights Watch awarded Seif el-Dawla its highest honour for her work to combat torture and promote women’s rights and freedom of association in Egypt.
Human rights groups accuse president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government of widespread abuses, allegations it denies.
As armed forces chief, Sisi toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Security forces killed hundreds of Morsi supporters in the streets and arrested thousands of others.
Secular activists were later rounded up. Non-governmental organisations have also been closed under what government critics say is a rollback of political freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that ended 30 years of rule under president Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptian authorities deny allegations by human rights groups and activists that security forces round up people and detain them in secret detention centres where they are tortured.
Egypt’s human rights record has come under fresh scrutiny since Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni, 28, was found dead on the outskirts of Cairo this month. His body showed signs of torture.
The government has denied media reports that he was arrested by security forces before his death.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
