Executive Summary- The Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) program is issuing a series of concept papers that aim to introduce the notion of WHRDs: who they are, what they do, and why they should be considered as a distinct group of human rights defenders. The categories of WHRDs analyzed in the concept papers include: vocational women (doctors, nurses, and teachers); students; political candidates; civil society activists; protesters; and workers (industrial and agrarian sectors).

Executive Summary- The Women Human Rights Defenders program at Nazra for Feminist Studies is launching its manual on Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs). Rather than translate into Arabic manuals that have been produced by other organizations, the WHRD program opted to produce it’s a manual that is especially tailored to the Egyptian context.

The targeting of Women human rights defenders  seen over the course of an entire day, when the sit-in at the cabinet building was dispersed at dawn on December 16, is a continuation and clear escalation of militaristic policies aimed at Women human rights defenders, employed consistently by the former regime prior to the January 25 revolution. The policy of targeting Women human rights defenders is part of attempts by those currently in charge of the country, the various security agencies, and the remnants of the former regime to expel women from the public sphere.