Navi Pillay told reporters Friday the UN's council based in Geneva has to address emergency situations like that in Cairo. Other human rights advocates have called for a special session. Pillay condemns what she calls outrageous assaults and detentions of advocates and journalists that are “clearly a blatant attempt to stifle news” about demands for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years in power.
She says “one of the prime drivers of this chaos seems to have been the actions of Egypt's security and intelligence services.”
Transparency International (TI), the global anti-corruption organization, condemned the attacks on journalists, civil society and peaceful protesters in Egypt and called on the government to stop the violence and release all those arrested, the watch dog said in a press release.
Reports from the Committee for the Protection of Journalists show that 30 journalists and their support staff from both Egyptian and international news organizations have been detained, attacked or had their equipment confiscated in the past 48 hours, it said.
In addition, there are reports that a number of civil society activists have been arrested following a raid on the Hisham Mubarak Center for Human Rights, the, Egyptian Center for Political and Social Rights and the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights.
With the death toll rising and the number of injured mounting, TI calls on the government of Egypt to protect all citizens who are exercising their basic human rights to free expression, and to stop the violence and intimidation, the group said,
TI brings people together in a powerful worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TI's mission is to create change toward a world free of corruption.
