Report says Belgian arms produced in Egypt fuel abuses

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

The report, according to Middle East Eye on February 24th, details how Belgian-designed small arms and light weapons (SALW) have been used by the Egyptian government to perpetrate abuses over the last decade, despite an embargo being imposed by Belgium back in 2014.

EgyptWide for Human Rights and the Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie who produced the report say arms manufacturers that include FN Herstal and the Herstal Group, New Lauchaussee, and the Nexter Group have got around the embargo by producing weapons outside of Belgium and trading intellectual property rights.

EgyptWide documented the misuse of weapons like FN FAL rifles and FN MAG machine guns,by Egyptian state actors in multiple incidents in the decade from 2013 to 2023 through analysing of footage and images.

The report found Belgian models of firearms used by Egypt’s army and police forces to extrajudicially assassinate people in northern Sinai.

As part of its campaign against the armed Wilayat Sinai group, the Egyptian state has bough about forced displacement, enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians.

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

It cited as evidence a video showing security forces raiding the civilian area as part of a police operation, then 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”.

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

According to the report, global arms production is not well-regulated in policy, with the 2012 Walloon Decree and the EU Common Position 2008/944/CFSP lacking provisions regarding offshore production and intellectual property rights.