VIA EGYPTIAN INITIATIVE FOR PERSONAL RIGHTSCAIRO — On bad days — and, in
recent years, there seemed to be more
bad days than ever — Gasser Abdel-
Razek, captain, counselor and friend to
nearly everyone in Egypt’s shrinking
human rights community, tended to
counter the tension and stress with
food.
So it was, in August 2014, during the
worst of Cairo’s blazing summer, that
Mr. Abdel-Razek showed up to visit a
friend in prison bearing a grin and an
ice cream cake. An act of foolishness,
maybe — or, as he often called his ap-
proach to advocacy under hostile condi-
tions, “strategic denial.”
“If we think about the threats, if we
try to assess what will get us in trouble
and what won’t, then it would be impos-
sible to work,” Mr. Abdel-Razek, the
executive director of the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights, said in a
recent interview. “We stay focused on
our work, and we tell ourselves, what-
ever happens, we’ll have to deal with
it.”
But in the last few weeks, denial
became impossible. First, his group’s
office manager, Mohamed Basheer, was
arrested, followed by the Initiative’s
criminal justice program director, Ka-
rim Ennarah, and finally, on Thursday
night, Mr. Abdel-Razek. Questioned
about a meeting their organization held
with Western diplomats on Nov. 3, all
three were charged with working for a
terrorist organization and spreading
false information.
The arrests seemed designed to snap
one of the few pillars of opposition left
standing in Egypt, where President
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has jailed thou-
sands of activists, politicians, lawyers,
journalists and protesters since taking
power in 2014. The government has
banned many human rights leaders
from traveling, frozen their assets and
hamstrung their work. Until last week,
however, most had avoided prison.
Political analysts, activists and West-
ern diplomats interpreted the arrests as
a signal to President-elect Joseph R.
Biden, Jr., who has been more vocal
than President Trump on human rights
in Egypt. Mr. Trump once saluted Mr.
el-Sisi as his “favorite dictator.”
Like a retailer that hikes its prices
before dangling 20 percent off, Mr.
el-Sisi may be cracking down in hopes
of padding his bargaining position.
“And then you’ll climb back down from
this in six months, and the Biden ad-
ministration will be very happy,” said
Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s
Middle East and North Africa director,
“and then you’re right back where you
started.”
The arrests were a thunderbolt, but
they could not be called a surprise,
certainly not to Mr. Abdel-Razek.
Schooled in the brutal vagaries of
Egyptian authoritarianism all his life —
as a child, he watched his parents, both
prominent leftists, be dragged away to
prison in raids on their home — Mr.
Abdel-Razek, 52, never nurtured a false
sense of security. He simply seemed to
shoulder risk more lightly than most.
Though rarely in the spotlight, Mr.
Abdel-Razek was the one whom others
turned to when in trouble. His jokes
unerringly punctured moments of
tension. Calm and pragmatic after
setbacks, including the arrest of an
Initiative researcher in February, he
would set about calling government
contacts and mobilizing resources.
But first, there was always breakfast.
If he found a staffer frazzled after a
bout with the courts, Mr. Abdel-Razek
made her an omelet as she vented. If he
and other advocates were split on strat-
egy, he invited everyone over to resolve
their differences over his fava bean
breakfast stew, homemade ceviche or
steaks served with sauces inspired by
hours of testing and cooking shows.
If a comrade was arrested, as hap-
pened increasingly often: eggs, ful
stew, hot bread. Occasionally, only ajumbo bucket of KFC would do.
Mr. Abdel-Razek studied accounting,
but politics was his parents’ world and
eventually became his. Beginning his
human rights career under President
Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Abdel-Razek
helped pioneer the use of litigation to
overturn oppressive laws and expand
legal recognition of rights for workers,
women and religious and sexual minor-
ities.
During the heady days of the 2011
Arab Spring revolt that toppled Mr.
Mubarak, Mr. Abdel-Razek clung to the
vision of a free and tolerant Egypt.
“Even though we probably won’t live
through another 2011 in our lifetime,
you’ve seen the power of human rights
work and you’ve seen what you can do
with it,” Ms. Morayef said.
In 2013, some Egyptian liberals made
common cause with Mr. el-Sisi, then the
leader of the military, in the name of
overthrowing Egypt’s first freely
elected president, Mohamed Morsi, an
Islamist.
Not Mr. Abdel-Razek. But, pairing
pragmatism with idealism, he learned
to work under the new regime, shout-
ing for rights at some times, keeping
quiet at others.
“Although we feel defeated now, we
cannot deny there have been gains
from the revolution,” Mr. Abdel-Razek
told Mada Masr, one of Egypt’s very
few remaining independent news out-
let, in 2015. “Something broke ideolog-ically in January 2011 that cannot be
reversed, despite attempts by the state
to do so.”
The interview was published the year
the government began obliterating any
remaining spaces for dissent. Arrests
accelerated, while obstacles to human
rights groups’ legal status accumulated.
Many of Mr. Abdel-Razek’s friends and
colleagues left the country. He stayed.
“He was telling me, ‘Maybe we’redoing the work for later on,’ ” said his
wife, Mariam Korachy, who said she
often wished the Initiative would close
because of the danger. “He said, ‘I’ll
wait until they come and close the
office.’ ”
Every year, survival seemed harder,
as Mr. el-Sisi tightened his grip on
power — and on dissent. After eliminat-
ing any serious opposition, the presi-
dent won re-election in 2018, and a
constitutional referendum in 2019 ex-
tended his rule. He has continued ar-
resting critics, whether major (well-
known activists and politicians), minor
(a satirist) or even underage (preteenprotesters).
“For many of us, we have more
friends inside prison than outside, and
it was hard to be hopeful,” said Hossam
Bahgat, a prominent investigative
journalist who founded the Initiative
before passing the reins to Mr. Abdel-
Razek in 2015. “Even for someone like
Gasser, who was ridiculously optimistic
and often ridiculed by his friends for
remaining optimistic.”
Without an independent judiciary, an
empowered parliament, a free press or
the ability to organize protests, Mr.
Bahgat said, activists were reduced to
advocacy on the smallest scale: repre-
senting detainees and documenting
violations.
Mr. Abdel-Razek believed such incre-
mental work still mattered, friends say,
but it was a steep comedown.
Over the last year, he began to con-
template moving on. There was more to
his life than politics: He loved desert
camping with his young sons; he talked
about opening a restaurant. He felt he
had done what he could in human
rights, he told friends, and maybe it
was time for new blood.
The organization’s board had begun
looking for a new director when the
police started arresting its staff. State-
owned media outlets spent days smear-
ing the organization, accusing it of
treason.
Mr. Abdel-Razek knew he would be
next. In a way, he hoped he would be.
“He didn’t want them to arrest all of
his staff and leave him free,” Ms. Ko-
rachy said.
He was arrested at home in Maadi, a
prosperous Cairo suburb, on the
evening of Nov. 19.
After being held incommunicado for
several days, he told his lawyers he had
been in solitary confinement, not al-
lowed out of his cell even for exercise,
and that the cash they had given him to
purchase food from the prison canteen
had been confiscated, said Ragia Om-
ran, one of Mr. Abdel-Razek’s lawyers
and friends.
He had been provided only light
clothes, despite the nighttime cold, and
no mattress for his metal bed, she said.
Leaving the prosecutor’s office after
an interrogation, Mr. Abdel-Razek
shouted through the barred window of
a police van to his wife: “Mariam! Say
hello to the boys. I love you.”
His curly hair had been shaved, but
he had, his lawyers said, a smile on his
face.Gasser Abdel-Razek, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, was arrested Thursday, accused of working for a terrorist organization. Below, Mr. Abdel-Razek with his sons.
VIA EGYPTIAN INITIATIVE FOR PERSONAL RIGHTSEGYPT DISPATCHFueling Defiance
With Humor and Food
By VIVIAN YEEMona El-Naggar contributed reporting.
“We tell ourselves,
whatever happens, we’ll
have to deal with it.”
GASSER ABDEL-RAZEKTUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020 A
NWhen Princess Mako of Japan became
engaged to her college boyfriend in 2017,
many Japanese hoped for a fairy tale
wedding for the couple.
But three years later, the prospects of
the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Ak-
ishino and her beau, Kei Komuro, a com-
moner and aspiring lawyer, living hap-
pily ever after look, well, complicated.
In remarks released Monday, Crown
Prince Akishino said he approved of the
wedding. But he also said there appeared
to be opposition to the union in Japan,
making it difficult to proceed with an offi-
cial ceremony. The crown prince has pre-
viously said that could happen only if the
public approved of the marriage.
“The Constitution says marriage shall
be based only on the mutual consent of
both sexes,” Crown Prince Akishino said
in a transcript of the remarks, made on
Nov. 20 on the occasion of his 55th birth-
day. “If that is what they really want,
then I think that is something I need to
respect as a parent,” he said.
But, he added, “I think it’s not the case
that many people approve and are happy
about it.”
The couple, both 29, were originally
set to marry in 2018, but the date was
pushed back after Japanese tabloids
caught wind of money problems in Mr.
Komuro’s family. His mother had become
embroiled in a dispute with a former fi-
ancé of hers over $36,000, some of which
was reportedly used for Mr. Komuro’s
schooling.
The reports raised questions about Mr.
Komuro’s intentions, with some detrac-
tors accusing him of being a gold digger.
The whiff of scandal proved too much for
many Japanese, not to mention the sen-
sibilities of the imperial family, which hasno taste for the incessant dramas that
have plagued royals in other countries.
The drama has echoes of another cou-
ple seemingly at odds with the royal es-
tablishment in their own country. Prince
Harry of Britain and his wife, Meghan,announced in January that they would
no longer be full-time working members
of the royal family.
In a 2018 news conference, Crown
Prince Akishino said that he “respected”
the desire of his daughter and Mr. Ko-
muro to wed but that an official ceremo-
ny would not take place unless the public
approved.
Unperturbed, the couple said they
would tie the knot in 2020.
In the meantime, Mr. Komuro went to
Fordham Law School in New York to pur-
sue a master’s degree, adding a long-dis-
tance relationship to the other pressures
on the couple.
Princess Mako released a statement
last month saying that while she and Mr.
Komuro remained committed to each
other, the wedding would not take place
this year. She did not say when she ex-
pected it to happen.
In his remarks, the crown prince sug-gested that Mr. Komuro had not taken
sufficient steps to address concerns sur-
rounding his mother’s affairs and that
the marriage should not proceed until he
had publicly shown his commitment to
resolving the problem.
The ups and downs of the prospective
couple are a reminder of the fragility of
the world’s oldest monarchy.
Japanese law forbids women to as-
cend the throne, and heirs must come
from the male line of succession. Follow-
ing the abdication of Emperor Akihito
last year and the ascension of his son
Naruhito to the Chrysanthemum
Throne, only two potential heirs remain:
the crown prince and his son.
Under Japanese law, if Princess Mako
marries Mr. Komuro she will have to
leave the imperial family and become a
commoner herself, even if the wedding is
officially approved, further shrinking the
already tiny royal clan.For Japanese Princess, Fairy Tale Wedding May Be a Distant Prospect
By BEN DOOLEYKei Komuro and Princess Mako an-
nouncing their engagement in 2017.SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI/AFP — GETTY IMAGESMakiko Inoue contributed reporting.