What about human rights? UK ambassador to Egypt criticised over agenda for MPs' visit

Britain’s ambassador to Egypt was criticised by human rights activists after in an experiment of “crowd-sourced diplomacy” he asked Twitter users what should be on his agenda – and failed to mention “human rights” as one of the four options.

Ambassador John Casson instead asked whether tourism, currency, terrorism or political reform ought to top his agenda before a visit by five British MPs to Cairo on Monday.

It came weeks after the torture and murder in the Egyptian capital of Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian citizen who was researching trade unions in Egypt, a sensitive topic. Most experts believe the killing bears all the hallmarks of Egypt’s notorious secret service, which has been accused of detaining and killing hundreds of dissidents.

A person close to Italy’s foreign ministry said there was dismay within Italian diplomatic circles that the UK had not taken a stronger role in the Regeni case, since he had been a resident in the UK for a decade and was pursuing a doctorate at Cambridge when he was killed. The UK trade envoy to Egypt, Jeffrey Donaldson, was sent to Cairo days after Regeni’s body was found in a ditch on a desert highway. During the visit he called Egypt “a land of real opportunity for British companies”.

Human rights activists and advocates for press freedom immediately responded to Casson’s tweet and called on the ambassador to raise Regeni’s murder as a top priority.

Tamara Cofman Wittes, director for Middle East Policy at Brookings thinktank, responded on Twitter, citing concern over Regeni’s death.

Many also raised the issues of press freedom, the detention of journalists and other political prisoners, and the plight of an Egyptian photojournalist known as Shawkan, who has allegedly been held without trial for almost three years. Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom group that advocates for jailed journalists, said in a recent letter to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, that the situation for journalists had become “unacceptable”, and called for the release of at least 32 reporters said to be detained or serving prison sentences.

Lotte Leicht, the EU director of Human Rights Watch, called on Casson to raise the Egyptian government’s crackdown on civil society, the release of political prisoners, and hold the government accountable for killings.

Casson has served as ambassador to Egypt since 2014. He was David Cameron’s foreign affairs private secretary from 2010 to 2014 and previously served as deputy ambassador to Jordan. According to his biography, he also worked as a research assistant at Cambridge University before entering government.

On Facebook, the UK embassy to Egypt has appeared to be active in promoting Egyptian tourism. Casson attended a conference last month in which he spoke of the desire to restart flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheikh. Flights in and out of the resort were suspended in November after the crash of a Russian airliner.

The British embassy in Egypt did not respond to a request for comment on which MPs were visiting or whether Regeni’s murder would be raised in meetings with Egyptian officials.