The State Information Service (SIS) stressed that Human Rights Watch (HRW)’s Report on Sinai is full of lies and fabrications on the situation in Sinai.
In its official detaied response to the report, the SIS said the HRW once again circulates lies regarding the human rights situation in Egypt, a pattern the international organization is used to when it comes to human rights in Egypt.
In September 2017, the HRW issued a report claiming there are 19 cases of torture in Egyptian prisons without providing any real evidence. The Egyptian prosecutor general, in turn, investigated those allegations and found that they were not true, SIS said.
In 2018, the HRW issued a variety of unfounded statements and made a report on the human rights situation in Egypt, including a report on Khaled Hassan, a defendant being prosecuted for his affiliation with Daesh s Wilayat Sina’a, it also said. They claimed he disappeared and was subjected to torture but later on all their claims were proved to be untrue, it added.
In 2019, the HRW once again made a report on May 28 regarding the situation in northern Sinai, it said. The report contained false allegations and was based on unreliable sources, sources that are in constant enmity with the Egyptian State and are deliberately attempting to distort the image of Egypt, it added.
It noted that the report included many alleged cases that are entirely unsupported by any real evidence as if this report is made to be read by amateurs.
That s why the Human Rights Unit of the State Information Service prepared this detailed comprehensive response to the report which refutes these allegations, SIS said.
As for the interviews included in the HRW report, the report claimed that 54 interviews were conducted with local residents in Sinai without clarifying many essential points to show their authenticity, SIS added.
It pointed out that the report said these interviews were conducted with Sinai locals either in Egypt or living abroad but it failed to uncover the identity of the interviewees "which makes us wonder why their identity was kept anonymous".
The report also did not refer to any interviews that were conducted with any Egyptian official or a government source in or out of Egypt, SIS said. "It did not show us the method by which they conducted the interviews either they were made through Skybe or social networking tools."
