Beirut — Police arrested a leading Egyptian women's rights defender at her home in Cairo on December 7, 2016, a serious escalation in the authorities' ongoing crackdown on independent rights groups, Human Rights Watch said today.
The police took Azza Soliman, a lawyer and founder of the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance, for interrogation before Judge Hisham Abdel Meguid, one of three judges assigned to investigate the foreign funding of independent Egyptian rights groups. Prominent rights activists had previously been summoned for interrogation in the investigation, but it was the first time that judges ordered the arrest of one of those involved in the case.
...