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Report

2 Jul 2018

Author:
International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights League of France, Observatoire des armements, Cairo Institute for Human Rights

Egypt: A Repression Made in France

A new report reveals... how the French State and several French companies have participated in the bloody Egyptian repression of the past five years by supplying Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime with military and surveillance equipment. By supplying Egyptian security services and law enforcement agencies with powerful digital tools, they have helped establish an Orwellian surveillance and control architecture that is being used to eradicate all forms of dissent and citizen action. In the face of this new scandal over French exports of arms and dual-use technology, our organisations seek the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry and an immediate end to these exports... Although the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council declared on 21 August 2013 that “the Member States have decided to suspend export licenses to Egypt for any equipment that could be used for domestic repression”, at least eight French companies... have nevertheless profited from this repression to reap record profits. Between 2010 and 2016 French arms deliveries to Egypt increased from EUR 39.6 million to EUR 1.3 billion... Some companies have sold conventional weapons to an army responsible for the death of hundreds of civilians in the name of the war against terrorism... Other French companies have sold armoured vehicles and cartridge manufacturing machines to police services that have no qualms about using machine guns to disperse protests. Finally, some companies have sold to the security services technologies for individual surveillance... mass interception... personal data collection... and crowd control...

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