COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Sinai: an opportunity to break the silence on gross human rights violations against indigenous peoples and marginalization for decades

At COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Governments and independent civil society have a real opportunity to highlight the suffering of Sinai’s residents who continue to live in a nightmare of ongoing violations

The undersigned human rights and environmental organisations, groups and individuals said that it is unreasonable that the Egyptian government will host thousands of participants in Sharm El Sheikh, Sinai to discuss the future of life on our planet, while turning a blind eye to the rights of Sinai’s inhabitants and the ongoing systematic and gross violations of their human rights. Addressing and discussing Sinai’s environmental and human rights situation during and around COP27 is the least that can be done to take into consideration the inhabitants who live on the land where the conference is hosted.

For decades, the Sinai Peninsula has suffered from the marginalization and failure to invest in its infrastructure by the Egyptian State.  Since 2013, war raged in North Sinai between Egyptian State forces and the Islamist armed group “Ansar Beit al-Maqdis” which in 2014 announced its affiliation with ISIS and re-named itself “Sinai Province”. Under the pretense of eradicating this armed group, Egyptian authorities have displaced tens of thousands of North Sinai residents, razed agricultural land, and imposed restrictions on the movement of people and goods, which has led to complete economic paralysis. Thousands of North Sinai residents have also been arrested and forcibly disappeared, kidnapped, tortured, and extrajudicially killed. Since then, North Sinai has turned into a closed military zone under a tight media siege to prevent the flow of information and access to journalists and independent observers.

The impacts of the policies of marginalization of local communities in Sinai has extended to COP27. The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights has not found any evidence indicating the Egyptian government’s invitation to any of the groups or representatives of Sinai’s residents, nor its tribes and indigenous communities to participate in an effective and independent manner that reflects pluralism and diversity during the COP27 or in meetings on the sidelines. The only exception is a news article indicating one association working in coordination with the North Sinai Governor’s office. In the list of admitted NGOs participating in COP27, there are no Egyptian organisations based in Sinai or mainly focused on Sinai.

The absence of the Sinai community from the COP27 is an expected result of the policies of the Egyptian government, which have stifled traditional forms of peaceful expression and assembly in Sinai society, including bureaus and popular councils.  Many Sinai activists who founded independent groups that criticize the government’s policies were arrested. This led to a crackdown on peaceful work while instead nurturing an environment in which radical violent groups thrive.

Sinai faces environmental threats including declining palm wealth, eroding beaches, declining groundwater reserves, rising temperatures, and degradation of the marine environment and coral reefs. Environmental protection groups in Sinai are unable to address these issues due to restrictions imposed on research, documentation, expression, criticism, and fear of reprisals and prosecution.

Despite several statements by high-level State officials including President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi that  the military operations in North Sinai are about to end and apparent decline in the attacks by “Sinai Province”, the impacts of the war continue and grave violations remain ongoing without accountability or remedy. Yet, the military’s strategy in Sinai is repeating the mistakes of the near past, taking a security approach that does not aim to gain the hearts and minds of civilians nor guarantee their basic rights guaranteed by international treaties.   Two weeks before COP27 begins, the Egyptian military has forcibly evicted civilians who recently returned to their villages after years of displacement at gunpoint. According to sources and eye witnesses who spoke to Sinai Foundation for Human rights, on 29 October 2022, in al-Nasr area in the village al-Zoheir in south al-Sheikh Zweid, the military has forcibly evicted 60 families from the Garaisha family, after detailing them inside the military vehicles and threatened at gunpoint. Then, the military forces left them in a remote area and threatened those who refused this decision to “kill them and burn their residences” if they refused to leave.

Sinai Foundation for Human Rights also documented that in October 2022, the military evicted 10 residential communities in areas and villages south and west of Rafah, northeast Sinai. Local residents confirmed that the military forcibly evicted them from their residences, and clarified that their return to these areas happened in coordination with the military and State forces and by invitation from government officials including the governor of North Sinai.

The protection of the environment, climate justice and formulating appropriate policies cannot be effective without comprehensive policies that protect the rights of people, promoting pluralism and peaceful participation. It is not possible to separate environmental rights from the rights of indigenous peoples. As affirmed by signatories to the Egyptian human rights coalition on COP27 petition, “advancing climate justice demands an inclusive, holistic approach to environmental policy that embeds human rights and tackles systemic problems, including historically rooted social injustices, ecological destruction, abuses by businesses, corruption and impunity, and social and economic inequality.”

The undersigned organisations, groups and individuals, urge all organisations/groups and activists participating in COP27 to take into consideration where the conference is hosted, the Sinai Peninsula, and to make efforts to raise and discuss during COP27 the issues of Sinai’s inhabitants and to stand in solidarity with them.

The undersigned also urge States participating in COP27 to send a clear message to the Egyptian government that repression of civil society is unacceptable, and to urge the Egyptian government to: implement the recommendations made in the joint statement by 32 States at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2021 to address the human rights crisis in Egypt, in particular to immediately and unconditionally release all those held simply for peacefully exercising their human rights; and  that any acts of reprisals against critical voices before or during the conference would be taken seriously.