Open Letter to the UK Foreign Secretary regarding surveillance of rights groups

UPDATE: Since this letter was sent, it has been revealed that GCHQ intercepted and retained communications from Amnesty International, and not the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. 

A number of UK based human rights groups brought a case to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which investigates, and rules on complaints about the unlawful use of surveillance by public authorities.  Recently the Tribunal found that two such cases were unlawful, albeit on narrow technical grounds. These cases involved two well-known and respected human rights NGOs, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Egypt and the Legal Resource Centre in South Africa.

This gave GPD grave cause for concern as we could see no rationale for subjecting such groups to surveillance as they are both lawful, respected organisations supported by donors and governments including the UK government in one case.

Consequently we drafted a letter to the UK Foreign Secretary, jointly with Article 19, which has now been signed by 30 major national and international organisations round the world.  This letter requests the Foreign Secretary to indicate who authorised the surveillance, for what purpose and to what end, and whether any foreign government was involved.

The letter is available here.