On 22 January, HRW presented the MENA section of the Human Rights Watch 2019 report, in London. HRW Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s advocacy and communications director Ahmed Benchemsi and other experts of the region participated in the presentation. They denounced the human rights situation in Al-Sisi’s regime: Benchemsi described Egypt as “a full-fledged dictatorship”, and Whitson denounced that “The Middle East has become closed to civil society” complaining that lots of MENA countries have imposed strict visa restrictions on HRW officials. In the Egyptian part of its report, HRW denounces in particular army’s abuses in their activity in the Sinai, security forces’ impunity in operating and the use of torture to obtain confession. The alarm covered also other fields such as death penalty (Egypt is the 3^rd country in world for death sentences), freedom, discrimination and social rights.