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Immigration Detention in Egypt: Military Tribunals, Human Rights Abuses, Abysmal Conditions, and EU Partner

Countries
Egypt
+ 6 more
Sources
GDP
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KEY CONCERNS

• Since July 2013, the jurisdiction of Egypt’s military has further expanded and military officers may arrest non-citizens for immigration reasons, placing them before military tribunals that do not meet international fair trial standards.

• Detention facilities—which include police stations, border guard stations, and prisons—are often overcrowded and lack basic detention conditions.

• There is no maximum length of administrative detention in Egyptian law and the Egyptian government does not release statistics related to the actual or average time-limit for administrative detention.

• Although UNHCR is authorised to conduct Refugee Status Determination based on a 1954 MoU with Egyptian authorities, representatives have often been denied access to detention facilities, as well as to refugees and asylum seekers.

• Despite recommendations from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, children continue to be regularly placed in immigration detention. UNHCR estimates that there are more than 3,800 unaccompanied (or separated) children of concern in the country.

• Despite ongoing human rights abuses in Egypt, the European Union has intensified EU-Egyptian cooperation in “migration management,” leading to a comprehensive crackdown on irregular migration on Egypt’s north coast.

Read the full report at the Global Detention Project