(Beirut) – The Egyptian government blocked access to the Human Rights Watch website inside Egypt on September 7, 2017, a day after the organization released a report that documented the systematic use of torture in the country.

The following quote can be attributed to Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch:



“Egyptian authorities keep insisting that any incidents of torture are isolated crimes by bad officers acting alone, but the Human Rights Watch report proves otherwise. Rather than address the routine abuses in Egypt, the authorities have blocked access to a report that documents what many Egyptians and others living there already know.”



In late May, the government started blocking most independent news websites. According to the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an independent Egyptian group, the number of blocked websites now stands at 424.