A History of Failures: Engagement between the Rights and Protest Movements in Egypt

In its four decades of existence, the sphere of action and tools of the Egyptian human rights movement have evolved.At the same time, political and economic shifts gave rise to a protest movement in the early twenty-first century.Lacking the means to influence government policies, it was fragmented and without a leadership and organisational framework.In this context, the human rights movement was unable to play an effective role in building grassroots bases, framing these protests and structuring their demands, and giving them enough support to confront the state, influence its institutions, and bring about change.This paper will analyse the relationship between the human rights and protest movements and explain the failure of the former to engage with the latter.The study seeks to answer a key question: Why did the human rights movement in Egypt fail to build a broad popular base or institutionalise and frame protest demands and strengthen the protest movement in its confrontation with the authorities?The study takes a descriptive analytical approach, relying as well on interviews with a number of Egyptian rights defenders.It concludes that the failure of the human rights movement is attributable to structural factors, such as state repression and the legal framework in which it operated, and factors internal to human rights organisations, including their reliance on foreign funding, the lack of a role for boards of directors coupled with the expansive prerogatives of executive directors, and representation and accountability.