Belgian arms produced in Egypt fuel human rights abuses, says report

A new report has revealed how Belgian-designed arms fuelling human rights abuses in Egypt are being produced offshore to circumvent the state’s arms embargo against Cairo.

The joint report by two rights groups details how Belgian-designed small arms and light weapons (SALW) have been used by the Egyptian authorities to perpetrate rights abuses over the last decade, despite a state embargo being imposed in 2014.

According to the report, by EgyptWide for Human Rights and the Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie, arms manufacturers including FN Herstal and the Herstal Group, New Lauchaussee, and the Nexter Group, have circumvented the embargo by producing weapons offshore and trading intellectual property rights.

EgyptWide documented the misuse of weapons, including FN FAL rifles and FN MAG machine guns, by Egyptian state actors in multiple incidents between 2013 and 2023 through the analysis of footage and images.

The report identified Belgian models of firearms used by the Egyptian army and police forces to perform extrajudicial killings in North Sinai as part of its campaign against the armed group Wilayat Sinai, which has resulted in the forced displacement, enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians.

The report also documented multiple incidents involving the use of a Belgian machine gun in Kerdasa, Giza, in September 2013 to target civilians.

It cited a video showing security forces raiding the residential area as part of a police operation, deploying small arms and light weapons and “seemingly adopting loose or no measures to protect the lives and safety of civilian residents in the area”.

The report details how Walloon arms companies have exploited loopholes in arms production regulations to supply arms to Egypt, enabling it to expand its arms production and export weapons to conflict-ridden and volatile countries like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Eritrea.

According to the report, entitled “License to Abuse: Belgian Arms Production in Egypt Fuelling Proliferation and Violations”, global arms production is not adequately regulated in policy, with the 2012 Walloon Decree and the EU Common Position 2008/944/CFSP lacking any provisions regarding offshore production and intellectual property rights.

The grey areas mean the Belgian arms industry enjoys “an almost unregulated discretion in the export of production material and technologies”.