Eight human rights organizations have issued a statement urging the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and EU foreign ministers to seize the opportunity of the European-Egyptian Association Council meeting this June to express their concerns about the grave violations of human rights and international law committed by the Egyptian authorities.

They also called on them to set concrete and measurable benchmarks for progress in human rights as safeguards for improvement in bilateral relations. They said that the European Union’s communication with the Egyptian side during the European-Egyptian Association Council meeting and other high-level meetings would send a message to the Egyptian people and civil society about the side on which the European Union stands.

They expressed frustration that their repeated calls, which have long demanded that the European Union take serious steps regarding widespread and systematic human rights violations under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have rarely received the due response. They added that they look forward to the EU foreign ministers bearing in mind that the Egyptian foreign minister represents a government responsible for mass killings, brutal suppression of protests, systematic torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention of thousands of opponents and the execution of many of them.