Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the validity of Human Rights Watch reports that human rights activist Mohamed Boshi was forcibly returned from Egypt to Sudan on 13 October 2018.

We are aware of recent reports regarding Mohamed Boshi and are tracking the case. The UK regularly raises concerns about freedom of expression with both the Egyptian and Sudanese Governments both in public and private. On 18 September we issued a statement at the UN Human Rights Council in which we raised specific concerns about the 'arrests of activists, bloggers and journalists'. The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa also raised concerns over freedom of expression with the Egyptian Foreign Minister during his visit to Cairo on 14 October. Freedom of expression and freedom of the media also remain a key focus of the human rights strand of the UK-Sudan Strategic Dialogue. During the most recent round of talks, held in London in November, a wide range of human rights issues were discussed with the Government of Sudan, and the Minister for the Commonwealth and the UN specifically raised the importance that the UK places on improvements in freedom of the media.