The Urgent Action Fund-Africa team would like to convey our strongest expressions of solidarity with Egyptian women and women’s human rights defenders during these increasingly trying times in the country. As a feminist fund and women’s rights fund that works across Africa to provide rapid response grant to protect and advance the rights of women’s human rights defenders (WHRDs), we are acutely aware of the grave risks they brave in their activism. We join the ranks of many organizations in strongly condemning the extrajudicial killings of peaceful demonstrators by Egyptian security forces on January 24th and 25th, 2015. On January 24th, 2015, woman human rights defender, Shaimaa Ahmed al-Sabbagh, the Secretary of Collective Action at the Socialist Popular Alliance Party was killed when security forces dispersed a peaceful march by several party members, using shotgun fire and tear gas.
On Thursday, January 29th, a peaceful women’s march was held in the spot in which Shaimaa was killed to protest her killing and call for accountability for her death. We support the bravery of the women and would like to join them in calling for state authorities to hold investigations to identify the individual(s) who shot Shaimaa and hold him/them accountable. We also call on the Egyptian authorities to repeal the infamous Public Assembly Law No. 107, which gives Egyptian authorities broad discretionary powers to ban or disperse most public demonstrations. We are appalled by the fact that state authorities did not abide by even this restrictive law, which states that security forces must warn protesters before dispersing a protest, and that dispersal must be implemented gradually, starting with water hoses, followed by tear gas in case demonstrators are unresponsive to dispersal warnings.
The murder of one woman is an attack on us all!
In solidarity,
Urgent Action Fund-Africa family
