Members of civil society attending Cop27 have described how surveillance and intimidation by the Egyptian authorities is threatening their participation in the climate conference.
Problems reported by attenders include overt surveillance, control of their meetings by conference staff and problems with accommodation.
International civil society participants, all of whom requested anonymity for their protection, told the Guardian how uniformed or plainclothes conference staff supposedly on hand to provide security, technical, or cleaning assistance to delegates, seemed preoccupied with surveilling them and controlling their activities rather than providing support.
“Just talking about the word activism means you are very quickly surrounded by people eavesdropping on you,” said one. Conference staff, he said, repeatedly surrounded civil society delegates to create an atmosphere of discomfort if they mentioned the word activism in conversation, or tried to discuss it with colleagues.
“Mentioning activism in conversation means you get ‘cleaners’ and technical staff coming over to you. Even on foreign government stands, the ‘cleaners’ will come up and listen,” he said.
The problems described by visiting attenders mirror many of the everyday problems that Egyptian civil society activists describe facing over the past decade, as the Egyptian authorities and in particular the country’s sprawling security forces institute a broad crackdown on independent organisations of all kinds.
Surveillance and intimidation of activists as well as the looming threat of arrest are common, while independent groups, from anti-torture organisations to unions, face raids and arrest by the security forces, now equally brazen about targeting activists abroad or disrupting their activities.
Veteran Egyptian activists welcomed the opportunity for the world to understand more about how they are regularly treated. “Once Egypt was selected as hosts, some people wanted to campaign against it or choose a different location, we said no don’t do that. Then some voices from outside Egypt wanted to call on activists to boycott the Cop in Egypt because of the human rights situation, we pleaded with them not to do that. Because we needed this – we needed the attention, we needed the solidarity, we needed the camaraderie,” said Hossam Bahgat, the head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Bahgat has been harassed by the Egypt state for a decade for his human rights work through arrests and trials, and is banned from leaving Egypt.
For those who attended the conference, especially high-profile Egyptian activists, the surveillance was overt. One delegate provided a photo of a suspected plainclothes member of the Egyptian security services openly filming Sanaa Seif, the sister of the jailed British-Egyptian hunger strike Alaa Abd el-Fattah, with his phone when she held a press conference at Cop27. The pro-government MP Amr Darwish attempted to disrupt Seif’s press conference.
A member of civil society from Egypt said the surveillance and intimidation was “signalling to everyone that we have to behave, or else. It’s really very hard,” he said. “Unlike other Cops, everyone seems to feel afraid due to this surveillance. There’s less activity, you don’t feel the spirit of the event, a push for climate activism and against the big polluters.”
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He added that he was concerned about the number of Egyptian security officials present inside the Cop27 conference centre and “blue zone” official area, when the space is normally controlled by the UN body that oversees the conference. The result, he added, was that groups felt unable to freely discuss climate activism or liaise with like-minded groups – the reasons they were attending in the first place. “Everyone is afraid, and this huge security presence is forcing people to self-censor,” he said.
Another visitor described how pressure from security guards at Cop27 had affected their ability to move freely during the conference. “One of our group described their suspicion today that security guards were standing close by and seemingly recording people talking. For a short period, these guards followed them wherever they went,” they said.
“We also held a meeting in a room that we had been assigned to, but we attempted to move to a more public open part of the venue to converse instead because the guards were so attentively sitting right behind us. They told us we had to stay in the room and keep talking there. It felt very invasive.”
Some attenders have reported problems even before getting to Egypt. A climate activist from Europe said that when he tried to check into his Egyptair flight he was told there was a problem and that he needed to face further questions.
At the airport, the activist said, he was questioned by a manager for Egyptair, a state-owned company, about petitions he had previously signed calling for improved human rights in the country. “He said that I was dealing with matters of national interest to Egypt and that he wanted to know what I will be doing in Egypt, what I will be doing there, and if I will be meeting troublemakers,” the activist said.
The manager eventually allowed the man to board the flight but warned him that if he did anything to “intervene” in Egypt he would be banned from the country. “It was disturbing and quite unpleasant,” said the activist.
Attenders of Cop27 have also reported being extorted by hotels for more money after booking rooms. One activist who arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh was told he must pay an extra $1,800 (£1,580) for his week’s stay at his hotel if he was attending Cop27, despite already having paid the previously agreed the $1,000 asking price. Unable to pay this extra charge, the man has opted to stay in his hotel as a tourist, rather than attend the conference.
A document circulated by the Egyptian Hotel Association, seen by the Guardian, requests that five-star hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh charge a minimum of $500 a night for delegates. Three-star hotels should charge $200 a night, the document states. A Nigerian civil society activist tweeted that some Cop27 delegates were forced to sleep in the bus station because they were unable to afford unexpected price increases, while others complained that their hotels had been cancelled.
One youth delegate, who was invited by the Egyptian sports ministry to attend Cop27 with her organisation, told the Guardian that she had burst into tears after five hours of waiting for a hotel room in the lobby with other attenders shortly after arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh, and that many of those she waited with slept on sofas in the hotel lobby or on the floor. She described the problems with accommodation as “a massive roadblock” to being able to participate in the conference.
“It’s super demotivating,” she said. “It feels like we’re literally worthless and it doesn’t matter if we sleep on the streets. It demonstrates that this is all just for show.”