Source description last updated: 26 November 2019

In brief: The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) is a human rights organisation based in Cairo and established in 2002.

Coverage on ecoi.net:

Selected reports.

Covered quarterly on ecoi.net, for Egypt.

Mission/Mandate/Objectives:

EIPR “works to defend and promote the rights to privacy, health, religious freedom and bodily integrity” (EIPR: Universal Periodic Review of Egypt, 20th Session, October – November 2014, 15 March 2014, p. 2) and “to strengthen and protect basic rights and freedoms in Egypt, through research, advocacy and supporting litigation in the fields of civil liberties, economic and social rights, and criminal justice.” (EIPR website: Who We Are, undated)

Funding:

No information found on the EIPR website. According to an overview on Egyptian human rights organisations by the Arab West Report from 2009, “EIPR rejects funding from the US government, but receives financial support from private funders in the US” (Arab West Report: Human Rights Organizations in Egypt, 1 May 2009, p. 99).

The magazine New Internationalist mentions in a 2009 interview EIPR director Hossam Bahgat that EIPR is “funded by the likes of the Ford Foundation and Irish Aid” (New Internationalist: Hossam Bahgat, 1 July 2009). However, no further information could be found in this regard.

Scope of reporting:

Geographic scope: Egypt.

Thematic scope: Human rights, with a focus on privacy, health, religious freedom and bodily integrity.

Methodology:

Desk and field research (EIPR: For Sale in the Prison Canteen, September 2018, p. 8), including interviews with witnesses and victims of human rights violations.

Reports usually contain a chapter on methodology (see for instance EIPR: A Death Foretold, p. 36).

Language(s) of publications:

English and Arabic.

Further reading / links:

Project on Middle East Democracy: Egypt Daily Update: Leading NGO Slams Foreign Funding Trial; Defendants Released in Religious Violence Incident, 22 July 2016
https://pomed.org/egypt-daily-update-leading-ngo-slams-foreign-funding-trial-defendants-released-in-religious-violence-incident/  

Reuters: Human rights on trial in Egypt as NGO funding case revived, 27 March 2016
https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN0WT06C   

Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy: TIMEP Brief: Case 173: Egypt’s Foreign Funding Case, 28 February 2019
https://timep.org/reports-briefings/timep-brief-case-173-egypts-foreign-funding-case/ 

AI: Egypt: NGO ‘foreign funding’ case acquittals must lead to end of crackdown on human rights community, 20 December 2018
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/12/egypt-ngo-foreign-funding-case-acquittals-must-lead-to-end-of-crackdown-on-human-rights-community/ 

 

All links accessed 25 November 2019.