Brussels for Human Rights and Developments (BHRD) welcomes the European Commission’s draft act on Single-use plastic beverage bottles EU rules for calculating, verifying and reporting on recycled plastic content. We believe that the act is a significant step forward in the EU’s efforts to reduce plastic waste and promote the circular economy.
We support the following key provisions of the draft act:
-The requirement that all producers of single-use plastic beverage bottles in the EU must calculate the recycled plastic content of their products. -The requirement that producers verify the accuracy of their recycled plastic content calculations. The requirement that producers report their recycled plastic content calculations to the European Commission.
We believe that these provisions will help to increase the transparency of the recycled plastic market and make it easier for producers to find and use recycled materials. We also believe that these provisions will help to reduce plastic waste incineration and landfill.
We have a few suggestions for improving the draft act:
-We suggest that the act be extended to include other single-use plastic products, such as straws, stirrers, and cutlery. -We suggest that the act include a requirement for producers to use recycled plastic in their products. We suggest that the act include a financial incentive for producers to use recycled plastic in their products. -We believe that these suggestions would further strengthen the act and help to achieve its objectives. We thank the European Commission for its work on this important issue. -We look forward to working with the Commission to ensure that the act is adopted and implemented effectively.
In addition to the above, we would like to highlight the following specific concerns:
-The draft act does not include any provisions to address the human rights impacts of plastic production and disposal. We believe that it is important to ensure that the transition to a circular economy does not lead to new human rights abuses, such as forced labor or environmental degradation. -The draft act does not include any provisions to address the issue of plastic pollution in developing countries. We believe that it is important to ensure that the EU’s efforts to reduce plastic waste do not lead to a disproportionate burden being placed on developing countries.
We urge the European Commission to address these concerns in the final version of the act.
Whenever and wherever humanity’s values are abandoned, we all are at greater risk. The solutions to today’s greatest crises are rooted in human rights. Rights violations reverberate across borders and across generations. These can be, must be, collectively overcome.
We need to stand up for our rights and those of others. The UDHR calls upon everybody to stand up for human rights. We all have a role to play.
We need an economy that invests in human rights and works for everyone. We need to renew the social contract between Governments and their people and within societies, so as to rebuild trust and embrace a shared and comprehensive vision of human rights on the road to a just and sustainable development.
As a “common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”, the UDHR is a global blueprint for international, national, and local laws and policies and a bedrock of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development explicitly recognizes it is grounded in UDHR and has to be implemented in a manner that realizes human rights.
The UDHR enshrines the rights of all human beings. From the right to education to equal pay, UDHR established for the first time the indivisible and inalienable rights of all humanity.
More than 755,000 people have been internally displaced in Somalia because of the severe dry spell this year, bringing the total figure to one million since January when the drought began, according to new figures released by UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“This one million milestone serves as a massive alarm bell for Somalia,” said Mohamed Abdi, NRC’s Country Director in Somalia.
Somalia is going through a two-year historic dry spell, the likes of which have not been seen in more than 40 years.
However, the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES) assessment report finds when making policy decisions, there is a too much global focus on short-term profits and economic growth that often undervalue nature.
An independent intergovernmental science and policy body, the IPBES secretariat is provided by the UN Environment Programme, authorized by UNEP’s Governing Council.
Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia and Switzerland presented the draft text to the 193-member Assembly, the UN’s most representative body, last June, following the landmark resolution adoption of a similar text adopted in October 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council.
The resolution recognizes the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of all human rights and, among others, calls upon States and international organizations to adopt policies and scale up efforts to ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all.
• Travailler à la réalisation des objectifs de développement durable, à l’éradication de la pauvreté, à la protection de la planète et à la paix et à la prospérité pour tous. •Promouvoir et diffuser une culture des droits humains politiques, civils, économiques, sociaux et culturels. •Promouvoir le principe d’égalité et de non-discrimination sur la base de la race, de la religion, de la couleur ou des croyances intellectuelles. •Sensibiliser et protéger les jeunes contre l’extrémisme et le terrorisme. •la formation et la réadaptation, afin d’accroître l’efficacité (professionnelle et technique) des travailleurs dans le domaine des droits de la personne. • Collaborer avec divers mécanismes internationaux et régionaux, comme la Commission africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples – Nations Unies et le Conseil des droits de l’homme – Commission européenne des droits de l’homme
Universal Periodic
Review | Egypt | 34th SessionARBITRARY EXECUTION
IN EGYPT Right To Life
March – 2019
L’organisation ‘ BRUSSELS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DEVELOPMENT BHR AISBL ‘ est une organisation belge indépendante fondée à but
non lucratif. L’organisation, basée à Bruxelles, s’occupe de la défense des
droits de l ’Homme et du Développement. Elle a été fondée officiellement en
2018 par un groupe de défenseurs des droits de l’homme.
L’organisation travaille pour à ce que tous les
individus au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord jouissent de la justice et de
la liberté sous la protection de la loi et les principes de la démocratie, tout
en participant à l’amélioration et au développement de la société à travers le
Comité africain des droits de l’homme et des peuples.
An
independent human rights foundation aims at supporting and protecting justice
and human rights. It operates according to the rules, mechanisms and systems of
the international organizations and has a significant partnership with the
concerned organizations.
The
Foundation aims to protect and promote human rights, in accordance with the
international standards adopted by the United Nations and the relevant
international covenants and conventions, and to support and defend the
oppressed.
Introduction:
Arbitrary execution is a description of official State killings,
whether by direct killing or summary executions that violate the standards and
guarantees of fair trials; the protection of human rights must be the principal
objective of all political systems. The purpose of this report is to highlight
the death penalty in Egypt, especially arbitrary executions during the four
years 2014-2018, which threaten the right to life.
Overview of the death penalty in Egypt from 1981 to 2018:
Unofficial
statistics by number of civil society organizations, that monitored the death
penalty in Egypt, indicate the issuance of death sentences as follows:
From
1981 to 1990, there were “179”
death sentences and 35 people were executed.
From
1991 to 2001, there were at least “678” death sentences and 213
people were executed. In 1999 alone, at least 108 people were sentenced to
death, including 12 women.
From
2002 to 2006, 280 death sentences were handed down in Egypt.
In
2007, more than 40 death sentences were handed down.
In
2008, at least 87 death sentences were handed down.
In
2009, at least 269 death sentences were handed down.
In
2010, 185 death sentences were handed down.
In
2011, 123 death sentences were handed down.
In
2012, 91 death sentences were handed down.
From
2013 to 2018 more than 1,500 death sentences were handed down.
Death penalty in Egyptian legislation:
The
death penalty and its application in Egypt constitute a threat to the human
right to life, especially with the existence of more than 105 criminal offences
are punished by execution, as stipulated in Egyptian Penal Code No. 58 of 1937,
Military Provisions No. 25 of 1966 and Arms and Ammunition Act No. 394 of 1954,
And the anti-terrorism Act No. 94 of 2014 and the Anti-Narcotics Act No. 182 of
1960. The crimes that entail the imposition of the death penalty are not
precise and could be open to interpretation, leading to the arbitrariness of
the issuance of these provisions, as well as the extension of the Egyptian
legislator of the death penalty to entail other crimes that don’t fall within
the scope of the most serious crimes.
Death penalty and the
Islamic law:
The
Egyptian government always invokes Islamic law when addressing the abolition of
the death penalty, reducing it or replacing it with another punishment, while
we find that Islamic law seeks to prevent all kinds of punishments which are
well below the death penalty, where there is in the principles of Islamic law
an explicit statement that says: “No
penalty (is given) on suspicious proof” – the suspicious proof means –
a flaw in the absolute certainty of the matter, if the suspicious proof exists
then the penalty must be stopped against this specific subject or crime.
The
principle of “self-preservation” has always been defined in the
principles of Islamic law, that is to say, to prevent the human spirit from
being lost and to seriously seek the prevention of the death penalty. This is
in keeping with article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stated
as The right to life.
Death
sentences in Egypt during the four years preceding the universal periodic
review:
Through monitoring and documentation,
we found that the death sentences in Egypt are mostly issued by an exceptional
and abnormal courts, known as the Terrorism Chambers or Military Justice, as
follows,
The Egyptian Constitution of 2014
states in article 97 that “no person shall be tried except in front of his
natural judge and that exceptional courts are prohibited”. On 23 December,
the Egyptian Minister of Justice issued Decree No. 10412 of 2013 to allocate
criminal services to the consideration of terrorism cases. On 26 December, the
President of the Appeal Court of Cairo decided to set up special chambers in
Cairo composed of judges from the criminal courts, called the Terrorism
Chambers, in contravention of the General Assembly’s decision to distribute
judicial work in accordance with the Judicial Authority Law No. 46 of
1972. Moreover, each Appeals Chamber at
the level of the Republic has allocated one or more departments to deal with
terrorism cases. The decision to choose a particular court or judge to consider
a particular case is illegal and represents a waste of the original basis of
the Egyptian judiciary and the judiciary law. These courts have issued harsh
sentences of both imprisonment and execution.
Military courts -the military
judiciary- in Egypt that had a large share in the issuance of death sentences
are actually exceptional courts, composed of military personnel, for the
consideration and adjudication of crimes referred to it by the Public
Prosecution or the Military Prosecution according to law No. 136 of 2014, on
the protection of public and vital installations, and the subordination of
crimes related to it to the military judiciary, in violation of the provisions
of Article 204 of the Egyptian Constitution 2014.
From
March 2015 to February 2016, JHR noted that the Egyptian authorities carried
out the death sentence of 52 people, who were sentenced to death from
exceptional judicial and military courts mentioned in the previous paragraphs,
while 48 people – We have documented information that they will be executed in
the coming days – as a result of judgments issued by the same courts referred
to in this report.
Death sentence lack
fair trial guarantees
While
reviewing the death sentences in cases of a political nature, we found that
these sentences lack the following guarantees:
Deprive
from being tried before the natural independent judge, whereby:
Death
sentences by exceptional courts known as “Exceptional terrorist circuits that
are formed in contrary to the Egyptian Constitution and the Deposition To Whom
It May Concern
Sentences
by the Military Courts
Sentences
based on the National Security officers of the Interior Ministry
investigations, while the death sentenced should be handed down when the
tribunal has no doubt the defendant committed the crime through facts and
evidences.
Death
sentences against citizens who were forced to confess crimes under torture, in
contrary to the Article 14-3 (g), which stipulates: “Not to be compelled to
testify against himself or to confess guilt”
Sentences
against individuals subjected to Enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention,
and torture.
Sentences
against individuals deprived from the right to defense, while being
investigated before the Public Prosecution.
Violation
of the right of defense in many cases, as follows:
The
defendants were not allowed to get defense witnesses, there were only the
prosecution witnesses, most of them are officials of the Executive Authority.
Failure
to respond to defense requests, in respect of technical evidence, and request
the recall of competent experts.
Failure
to enable the defense to seek a review of cases in which civilians are tried
before military courts.
The
trial sessions are held at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior
(the police authority). The trial sessions are still held outside the courts,
either at the police academy or in the police secretaries’ institute in Tura,
south of Cairo, since July 2013.
Mass Death sentences in Egypt
During
the last four years, nineteen judges in unfair mass trials handed down 1056
death sentences.
200
death sentences were handed down against civilians by the military exceptional
courts, which is not internationally recognized.
A
statement of the names of judges and the number of sentences they handed down:
In
the first place comes Judge “Mohammed Nagy Shehata” that handed down (263)
judgements.
In
the second place comes Judge “Said Sabry” who handed down (220) death
sentences, he is the highest ever judge to refer cases to the Mufti, (683)
defendants were referred in the case known as “Al-Adwa incidents in Minya
governorate-Upper Egypt”, then he sentenced (183) citizens to death, after
creating a stir in Egypt and the world.
In
the Third place comes Judge “Shaaban Al-Shamy” who handed down (160) death
sentences.
In
the Forth place comes Judge “Hassan Farid” who handed down (147) death
sentences.
In
the Fifth place comes Judge “Mohammed Sherin Fahmy” who handed down (46) death
sentences.
In
the Sixth place comes Judge “Said Youssef Saad” who handed down (37) death
sentences, he previously referred (528) citizens to the Mufti in the case known
as “Matay incidents”
In
the Seventh place comes Judge “Moataz Khafagy” who handed down (30) death
sentences.
In
the Eighth place comes Judge “Osama Abdelzaher” who handed down (26) death
sentences.
In
the Ninth place comes Judge “Salah Heriz” who handed down (21) death sentences.
Judge
“Shabib Al-Damarany” also handed down (21) death sentences.
In
the Tenth place comes Judge “Alaa Shogaa” who handed down (18) death sentences.
In
the Eleventh place comes Judges “Nabeel Salib” and Judge “Farhan Batran” each
with (12) death sentences.
In
the Twelfth place comes Judge “Hussein Kandil” who handed down (11) death
sentences.
In
the Thirteenth place comes three Judges, each handed down (8) death sentences,
namely: Judge “Fathy Al-Baioumy”, Judge “Hefny Abdelfatah” and Judge “Abdalla
Abdelsamia Abdelrahman Salem”.
In
the Sixteenth place comes Judge “Fetouh Elsayed Allam” who handed down (5)
death sentences.
In
the Seventeenth place comes Judge “Gamal Aqrab” who handed down (3) death
sentences.
In
a positive precedent on the legal and judicial level in Egypt over the past
years, specifically on February 27, 2019, a military appeals chamber accepted a
petition by the two sentenced to death, Ahmad Amin Ghazali and Abdel Raouf
Abdel Basir, case No. 174 of 2015 Military – The military court ruled to
abolish the death sentence and replace the sentence with life imprisonment
instead of execution. We mention this positive incident because dozens of
civilians were executed before their appeals were viewed by the military
courts.
Some
of the Irrevocable Death sentences:
No
Case
Known as
Case
no.
Governorate
No. of
sentenced
1
Killing the guard
16850 of 2014, Mansoura felonies
Dakahlia
6
2
Bibliotheca Alexandria
20091 of 2014 Bab shark felonies
Alexandria
2
3
Fadl Almawla
1781 of 2014 East of Alexandria felonies
Alexandria
1
4
Communication with Qatar
315 of 2014 High state security felonies
Cairo
3
5
Port Said Incident
437 of 2012 Port Said felonies
Port Said
10
6
Matay
1824 of 2013 North of Minia
Menia
6
7
Kirdasa incidents
Case no.12749 of 2013 Kirdasa center felonies
registered under 4804 of 2013 North Giza
Giza
20
Total
48
Recommendations
Abolishing the death penalty in Egypt.
Stopping the execution of final death
sentences issued in violation of fair trial guarantees.
Cease the trial of civilians before
military courts.
العربية
