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Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report

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ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 209 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report Mohamed Farahat This is an Open Access report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited and any modifications or adaptations are indicated. This report is part of ‘Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries’; the Introduction is also recommended reading. © 2021 Mohamed Farahat © Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2021.014 ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 210 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report 1. Introduction Egypt has experienced many political and social changes prior to and since the 2011 uprising. These changes have had a significant impact on civic space offline, as well as online. Digital rights are simply human rights in online spaces and are recognised as being of central importance. This is especially true when closing civic space in the physical world means that opening civic space online is a necessary last resort. The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of digital rights, especially for vulnerable groups such as refugees and people in rural and remote areas. The main objective of this report is to give an overview of digital rights in Egypt, especially in the context of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, the right to access the internet, and for access to information, and the right to knowledge; and to explore the impacts of the political context on civic space in general and digital rights in particular. Social media played a significant role during the political mobilisation of 2011 that led to the removal of the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the Middle East and North Africa region’s longest-surviving regime at the time. Subsequent regimes have paid special attention to digital rights and social media, and taken all possible measures to control internet access and target activists, whether using technical means through censorship and surveillance of their online activities; or through legislative tools that legalise internet shutdowns, banning websites and criminalising the right to freedom of expression by labelling anything that challenges the government as fake news. These practices have proliferated during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been dealt with as a national security issue. As a result, bloggers, journalists and doctors who share information about the number of infected people have been targeted and jailed, accused of publishing fake news. © 2021 Mohamed Farahat © Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2021.014 ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 211 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report 2. Political landscape Undoubtedly, civic space and its actors and dynamics in general are affected positively and negatively by the political environment. There is a positive direct relationship between the political environment and civic space in terms of how open or closed it is. The political environment is described as an open environment when it allows and accepts criticism, and accommodates different variables and positively interacts with different components of the political environment. Egypt has witnessed significant political openings and closings throughout the past 20 years. For the purposes of this report, the political landscape will be addressed during two main phases. The first phase extends from 2000 to 2010. The second phase extends from 2011 to the present. 2.1 First phase (2000–10) This phase was under the Mubarak regime, which was in power from 1981 until the 2011 ‘revolution’. The political situation was stable during the period from 2000 to 2010 as regards civic space and digital rights. The Mubarak regime adopted policies that led to a relatively open civic space. Irrespective of the human rights situation, human rights activists enjoyed the freedom to speak out about the human rights situation and establish new organisations. Although, the political atmosphere under the Mubarak regime permitted some level of openness in civic space, it did not prevent the eventual uprising against the regime. Many factors contributed to the uprising, including corruption (Hassan 2011), control of the political space and human rights violations (Rastegari 2012), but there were two main triggers: firstly, electoral fraud during the 2010 legislative elections, which resulted in the National Party controlling the vast majority of seats in parliament (Bakr 2016: 61, 66); and secondly, the death of Khaled Saeed, a youth who was reportedly tortured to death by Egyptian police in June 2010 (ibid.: 65). 2.2 Second phase (2011–present) The second phase is divided into two main landmark periods of political and social changes: the first period from 2011 to the end of June 2013; and the second period from July 2013 up to the present day. During the first period, also known as the Arab Spring, civil society played a significant role and was the main engine of the social and political mobility that took place not only in Egypt but in all countries that witnessed political regime change during the period (ANND 2020). © 2021 Mohamed Farahat © Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2021.014 ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 212 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report Egypt saw a transitional period from the end of February 2011 until Mohamed Morsi was elected as president in June 2012. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) managed the transitional process, implementing laws and regulations, and issuing a constitutional declaration to regulate the interim period between the revolution and the adoption of the new constitution. ‘Other issues of national interest addressed by the SCAF included electoral law reform, adoption of pro-freedom of association measures and media related reforms such as appointment of new editors’ (Dube, Simiyu and Ilori 2020: 26). Thus, this period could be characterised as a period of relative political opening. 2.3 Muslim Brotherhood regime (2012–13) The Muslim Brotherhood regime came to power in Egypt after the presidential election on 30 June 2012, which resulted in Mohamed Morsi being elected as president. Ten months later, the Tamarod protest movement was established and began collecting signatures to ‘withdraw confidence’ from President Morsi and mobilise citizens for a demonstration on 30 June 2013. Social media was the main tool used to mobilise for the demonstration, which led to the removal of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood regime from power. In July 2013, the General Command of the Armed Forces issued a statement that led to the ousting of the regime (Arab Republic of Egypt 2013). The political situation and civic space changed significantly after July 2013, resulting in a closing of civic space. © 2021 Mohamed Farahat © Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2021.014 ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 213 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report 3. The civic space landscape Civic space is one of the most influential factors in Egyptian political dynamics. In light of weak political parties, civil society has become the real political opposition to the regime. It is recognised that civil society does not operate or develop in a vacuum, but instead reflects the general political situation. The political context in Egypt as described in section 2 has a significant impact on the degree of openness of civic space in Egypt. Civic space in Egypt could not be described as completely closed, but it is relatively restricted (ANND 2019). In contrast, Egypt has consistently received a score of ‘not free’ by Freedom House (see Figure 3.1). Figure 3.1 Freedom House ranking for ADRN countries, 2000–191 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Zimbabwe N/A N/A Zambia N/A N/A Uganda N/A N/A Sudan N/A N/A South Africa N/A N/A Nigeria N/A N/A Kenya N/A N/A Ethiopia N/A N/A Egypt N/A N/A Cameroon N/A N/A Free Partially free Not free Note: ADRN – African Digital Rights Network. Source: Adapted from Freedom House (2019) In light of the political changes in Egypt since 2011, civil society took the lead in demanding political regime change; the use of technology and social media for social mobilisation that facilitated the 2011 uprising and, later, the removal of the Mubarak regime, marked the beginning of the closure of civic space in Egypt, and different measures were taken to reduce the activities of civil society or totally stop activities. 1 Data not available for 2010 and 2012. © 2021 Mohamed Farahat © Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2021.014 ids.ac.uk Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries 214 Egypt Digital Rights Landscape Report The period from 2000 until the 2011 uprising had witnessed an increase in the activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the establishment of new organisations (ANND 2020). Although international and internal pressure led the Mubarak regime in this period to take steps to open civic space (ibid.) and take the lead in democratic transition from the top down, this does not reflect the fact that Egypt’s NGO laws were flexible or in line with international human rights law and standards. For example, Law No. 84 of 2002 concerning national associations required that all NGOs register with the Ministry of Insurance and Social Affairs; banned any civil society activities that threatened national unity or violated public order or morality, and prohibited groups from receiving foreign funding without advance approval; and made the establishment of new NGOs subject to authorities’ absolute discretion.
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