A mass popular conference for the UPR Alliance in Assiut

“The high rates of poverty and the severe shortage of public services,” the most important issues of the Abu Tig Center

The new Associations Law gets the lion’s share in the topics discussed at the conference

The Abu Tig Center in Assiut Governorate, one of the poorest Egyptian governorates, according to the Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics Report 2016, hosted a popular rallying conference on the universal periodic review on Wednesday evening, November 30, 2016, which it called Servants of God Association for Population and Community Development in Baqour, One of the member organizations in me Civil Society Organizations Coalition for the Universal Periodic Review, In the presence of my representatives Maat for Peace, Development and Human RightsWhich operates the Technical Secretariat of the Alliance and provides the necessary technical support to member organizations with the aim of documenting human rights conditions in all governorates of the Republic, consulting on how to improve these conditions and supporting Egyptian International to fulfill them through a set of proposals, policy papers, legislation and capacity building programs.

400 civil work cadres, executives, volunteers, youth and citizens participated in the popular conference, and the conference discussed the emergence of the universal periodic review mechanism, the stages of the review, who are the countries that are subject to the mechanism, when they are subject to the mechanism, and the results of states being subject to this mechanism. Focusing on the results of Egypt's submission to the universal periodic review in 2010 and 2014, the recommendations that were submitted to the Egyptian state, and issues related to these recommendations.

The coalition, which was established in May 2016, aims to shed light on a set of human rights challenges that citizens suffer with in order to find societal and institutional solutions to them, in addition to exchanging the best experiences between member organizations, especially those with the consultative status of the United Nations Economic and Social Council who have practical experience in dealing With the international mechanisms for the protection of human rights and the UN system on the one hand, and other member organizations who may not have the same experiences in an attempt to create an integrated work network at the provincial level. In addition to actively participating in the UPR sessions for Egypt by submitting reports on the human rights situation, following up the implementation of recommendations between review cycles and pressing for the fulfillment of the largest possible number of recommendations, and intervening in urgent issues related to the human rights situation in order to contribute to their solution.

The most urgent issues discussed by the conference varied between finding sustainable solutions to the governorate’s suffering from high poverty rates and low level of public services. The governorate suffers in particular from the deterioration of the level of medical services, sanitation and education, and in this regard, the conference proposed networking with a group of business institutions to involve the private sector Broadly in the development processes through the promotion of corporate social responsibility.

The most important and controversial issue during the conference was the new Associations Law that was passed by the House of Representatives the day before the mass conference, where the participants unanimously agreed on the imperative to open a community dialogue about the law before it is approved by the President of the Republic, with the aim of ensuring the freedom of civil society Complies with the country's international obligations.