Egypt - December 2024

On 16 December, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ratified Egypt's first asylum law, which transfers responsibility for asylum processing from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to a newly established government body, the Permanent Committee for Refugee Affairs. According to the government, the law is designed to bring Egypt's asylum procedures in line with international standards. However, rights groups have raised concerns, claiming that the law threatens the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. They point to vague exclusion criteria, the criminalization of irregular entry, and restrictions on refugees' political activities as particularly problematic. Additionally, vaguely defined emergency powers have sparked fears that they could be misused to arbitrarily deny asylum claims. Approximately 800,000 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the UN Refugee Agency in Egypt.

Sources: Egyptian Official Gazette, Al-Shorouk, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch