Mohamed Ali Beshr, former senior member in the Muslim Brotherhood welcomed the UN declaration issued on Friday by 27 countries, condemning human rights abuses in Egypt, in press statements on Saturday.
“The 27 countries denounced Egypt’s restrictions on peaceful assembly, expression and association, and urged the government to release those arrested solely for exercising those rights,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in the statement on Friday.
This comes in opposition to the report that was issued by the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt (NCHR), which Beshr believes failed to reflect reality, especially concerning the incidents of the dispersal of the Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in Rabaa al-Adaweya and Nahda Squares, last August.
“[The report] encourages impunity of the perpetuators in its untruthful portrayal of the situation in Egypt, and charges the victims of serving objectives that are inhumane and illegitimate,” Beshr stated.
This is the second official announcement of a Brotherhood affiliate’s position regarding the NCHR’s report. Ex-MB leaders expressed their severe condemnation in a press conference last Thursday, with the families of detained MB leaders, and with the presence of Mohamed Abdul Qodous, one of the members of the NCHR who admitted the report was wrongful towards protesters, who died as a result of the use of excessive force by authorities.
The UN report, however, called on the fact-finding commission, which issued the ENCHR report on March 4, to hold accountable anyone responsible for using “lethal force against protesters, journalists and others for exercising the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly, as well as solely for membership in the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Egyptian authorities are now on notice that the international community will not ignore their crackdown on dissent and impunity for repeated, unlawful killings of protesters,” said Julie de Rivero, the Geneva director at Human Rights Watch.
The multiparty UN report was pushed by HRW, who stated that they addressed the UN Human Rights Council on March 3 to tackle the “grave situation of human rights in Egypt.”
