Sharm
El-Sheikh, Egypt —
UN officers running security at the
COP27 climate summit in Egypt said Monday
they are probing allegations of surveillance and misconduct by Egyptian police
towards delegates.
اضافة اعلان
Participants at COP27 — including activists, rights
defenders, and civil society groups — have raised cases of “surveillance”
during the summit, which opened on November 6 at Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of
Sharm El-Sheikh.
The UN Department for Safety and Security, which
works with Egyptian police to secure the summit, said Monday it had “been made
aware of allegations” of violations of the code of conduct and was
“investigating these reports”.
But Wael Aboulmagd, representative of Egypt’s
presidency of the COP27 said the allegations were “ludicrous”, he told
reporters.
“Some people we’ve been talking to, from the
developing world in particular, are tired of these apparently intentional
distractions from climate issues,” Aboulmagd said.
Claims surfaced after the German delegation hosted
an event featuring
Sanaa Seif, sister of jailed hunger-striker and
pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.
Seif was heckled by pro-government attendees at two
press conferences, who called her brother a “criminal”, not a “political
prisoner”.
Seven months into a hunger strike, Abdel Fattah
escalated his fast to include water on November 6 as world leaders arrived for
COP27 to protest the conditions he said he and about 60,000 other political
prisoners face in the country.
He has since started taking liquids again, according
to a letter that prison authorities handed to his family on Monday.
‘Watched’
Egypt, which has sought to
burnish its image by hosting the climate talks, has come under fire during the
summit over its human rights record, with the fate of Abdel Fattah grabbing
attention.
A German diplomatic source said a complaint was
lodged with Egypt as the delegation “felt we were being watched”.
Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich
Boll Stiftung foundation in Washington, told Germany’s ZDF broadcaster that
said she felt “watched” and was “clearly more uncomfortable than at any other
COP before”.
Schalatek, a climate finance expert who has attended
COP conferences since 2008, says this time cameras in meeting rooms were
directed at the faces of speakers.
“This is both unnecessary and unusual for such
internal coordination meetings,” she said. “The possibility that everything is
being recorded cannot be ruled out.”
Human Rights Watch had previously condemned
Egypt’s
“sweeping surveillance” plans, which included the installation of cameras in
hundreds of taxis in Sharm al-Sheikh.
The New York-based rights group also warned that
Egypt’s smartphone application for COP27 attendees, which it said requires
“access to the phone’s camera, microphone (and) location”, raises “surveillance
and privacy concerns.”
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