Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of Egypt in the light of the reporting by Human Rights Watch about human rights abuses under President al-Sisi.

We raise our human rights concerns regularly with the Egyptian government, including some of the issues highlighted by Human Rights Watch. On 17 May, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), raised the death sentence for former President Morsi with the Egyptian Ambassador in London.

We continue to believe that stability and prosperity in Egypt is dependent on open and inclusive politics and on full respect for the rights contained in the Egyptian constitution. That is why in recent months Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers have asked the Egyptian authorities to take action to release journalists and political detainees who remain imprisoned, to review mass judicial decisions, and to remove restrictions on civil society.