RIGHTS-EGYPT: Anti-War Demonstrators Report Torture

By Cam McGrath Reprint | | Print |

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Apr 30 2003 (IPS) - Students, journalists and activists rounded up during the police crackdown on anti-war demonstrations have been tortured, rights groups say.

Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators have been detained since late March, when protestors defied a long-standing official ban on public demonstrations to protest against the war in Iraq.

Students, journalists and activists rounded up during the police crackdown on anti-war demonstrations have been tortured, rights groups say.

Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators have been detained since late March, when protestors defied a long-standing official ban on public demonstrations to protest against the war in Iraq.

Several activists were arrested during anti-war rallies. Others were arrested at their homes. They were taken to state security headquarters, where they were held incommunicado for days or weeks.

Many were beaten up during detention. Friends and onlookers who tried to help were also beaten up.

“I don’t recall anyone who was arrested and not beaten up,” says Aida Seif Al- Dawla, a psychiatrist at the Al-Nadim Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence.

Many were charged with “participating in an illegal assembly of more than five people” in violation of a 1914 law.

Former detainees say they were treated badly, and tortured while in custody. They say the police beat them with canes, administered electric shocks, burned them with cigarettes and bludgeoned their face, stomach and testicles. Male detainees were threatened with death, females with rape.

“This type of (psychological) torture is new for this category of activists,” says Al-Dawla. Such threats against detaineed or members of their families are more commonly used against Islamist prisoners.

Egypt has a dismal record of torture. After reviewing the findings of an independent committee, the Geneva-based Committee against Torture concluded last year that there was “widespread evidence” of torture of detainees by security officials.

Rights groups say security officers torture detainees to extract confessions or to get information about a terrorist group’s activities. This time round the motive is to discourage political protest against the government, they say.

Former detainees say investigators tortured them for hours without interrogation. They were asked “ridiculous” or extremely personal questions, they say.

Lawyer Gamal Eid was arrested during a demonstration March 21. He said during a hearing that officers beat him with a stick while he was in custody.

“A police captain and a guard tied my legs, then the warrant officer beat me with a stick on my back, neck and arm…until the stick was broken,” he said. Eid said he was denied medical attention for a broken arm and other injuries he suffered.

The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) says all activists detained in late March have been released. But at least six activists arrested in mid-April are still in custody at El-Tora Prison south of Cairo. Authorities have stopped EOHR lawyers from visiting the detainees, who were reportedly tortured at another state security facility.

A former detainee who shared a cell with Ramiz Gihad – listed among those still in detention – told interviewers that Gihad, a 25-year-old law student, was taken away from the cell several times a day.

“He stayed a long time upstairs, up to four hours at a time,” the former detainee said. “He was tortured by electricity and he was beaten up. He told us all this – but he didn’t have to. You could tell by his condition.

“We saw the burn marks from the electrocution. He was nearly comatose when they carried him in. His face was badly swollen and bruised. He was shaking. There were burn marks on his hand and elbows, and on his feet and toes. His mouth was dry. The policemen carrying him in ordered us not to give him any water.”

Amnesty International has called for “an immediate and impartial investigation into the allegations of torture or ill-treatment, for the results to be made public and for those responsible to be brought to justice.”

Amnesty also demanded that authorities release all detainees held in custody “solely on the basis of exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

Joe Stork, director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch described the situation in Egypt as “an epidemic of state security violence and arbitrary detention in response to people protesting against officials and their policies.”

Egypt is signatory to the 1987 Convention against Torture. The country’s constitution provides that arrested or detained citizens be treated humanely, and protected from physical or psychological harm.

Article 126 of the Penal Code provides for a sentence between three and ten years imprisonment for “any public employee or servant that orders or personally performs the torture of a defendant to force the latter to make a confession. Cases of death that result from such acts of torture shall be subject to the same penalty applicable to premeditated murder.”

Last year, an Egyptian court sentenced a police captain and an officer to three years imprisonment for torturing to death a robbery suspect during interrogation. Other prison sentences have been handed down to police officers who “crossed the line”, but convictions do not come easy.

“Nobody who commits torture is convicted unless a citizen dies,” says EOHR president Hisham Kassem.