12 May 2011
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An excerpt from Amnesty International’s 2011 report, The State of the World’s Human Rights:
The authorities continued to use state of emergency powers to target government critics, opposition political activists and people suspected of securityrelated offences, despite a presidential decree in May limiting the application of the Emergency Law.
Some were held in administrative detention without charge or trial, others were tried before emergency or military courts whose procedures did not satisfy international standards for fair trial.
Journalists and other government critics continued to be prosecuted under criminal defamation legislation. The authorities maintained strict controls on freedom of expression, association and assembly.
Torture and other ill-treatment remained common and widespread, and in most cases were committed with impunity. Several deaths as a result of torture or other abuses by police were reported.
Several hundred administrative detainees were released but thousands of others, including long-term detainees,continued to be held despite court orders for their release; the government did not disclose the number of those detained.
Forced evictions in Cairo, Port Said and Aswan affected thousands of slum-dwellers who lived in dangerous conditions because of an acute shortage of affordable and adequate housing.
Border security forces shot dead at least 30 people, mostly migrants from other African countries, who were seeking to cross the border into Israel. At least 185 people were sentenced to death and at least four were executed.
Background
The government accepted many recommendations made during the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Egypt in February, but rejected others and deferred a recommendation to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on torture to visit Egypt.
In May, the state of emergency in force since 1981 was renewed for a further two years, but a presidential decree issued at the same time limited
the application of the Emergency Law to cases involving “terrorism” and drugs trafficking.
Workers staged many protests against rising living costs and to demand better wages and working conditions. The authorities failed to implement an
administrative court ruling to establish a minimum wage commensurate with the average cost of living.
Political activists, including members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and other political opposition groups such as the National Association for Change, the 6 April Movement and the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya), demonstrated against the state of emergency and police abuses.
Many were arrested, beaten and taken to remote locations and dumped after their mobile phones, money and shoes were confiscated.
Others were detained and charged with assaulting police officers, tried and sentenced to prison terms.
Elections for the Shura, the upper house of parliament, in June and for the People’s Assembly in November and December resulted in large majorities for the ruling National Democratic Party, but were marred by serious allegations of fraud, vote-rigging and violence, which left at least eight people dead.
The leading opposition parties formally withdrew from the People’s Assembly elections after the first and main round of voting in November.
At least 1,200 supporters and candidates associated with the Muslim Brotherhood were detained after it announced in October that it intended to put up many of its supporters as candidates for election. According to the official results, none of them was elected, eliminating the
Muslim Brotherhood from the lower house of parliament in which they had previously formed the main opposition bloc.
Counter-terror and security
The authorities used their state of emergency powers to detain people suspected of security-related offences. Detainees were held incommunicado, often for several weeks.
Many alleged that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated by State Security Investigations (SSI) officials and forced to make “confessions” that they later repudiated when brought to trial. Other security suspects were deported.
Husam Radhwan el-Mar’i, a Syrian resident ofYemen, was detained for 38 days after he was arrested at Cairo airport in April. He was held incommunicado
and, he alleged, beaten, whipped and tortured with electric shocks because he was suspected of belonging to a “terrorist group”. He was released without charge on 19 May and deported to Yemen.
In April, an (Emergency) Supreme State Security Court sentenced 26 alleged members of the so-called Hizbullah Cell to prison terms ranging from six months to life after convicting them of planning to attack tourist sites, possessing explosives and passing information to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Four of the defendants were tried in their absence.
The 22 who appeared before the court had been detained incommunicado for months at an undisclosed location by order of the Interior Minister after they were arrested in 2008 and 2009. They were convicted on the basis of “confessions” they repudiated and said had been extracted using torture. The court failed to adequately examine their allegations.
Detention without trial – administrative detention
Despite the May presidential decree limiting the use of the Emergency Law, in practice the authorities continued to use emergency powers to detain opposition activists and to curb freedom of expression.
The authorities said that hundreds of administrative detainees were released in accordance with the presidential decree, including detainees held in connection with bomb attacks at Taba in 2004, but disclosed no details about those who continued to be detained.
Thousands remained in detention without charge or trial despite court orders for their release; in practice, the Interior Ministry circumvented release orders by issuing new detention orders, undermining judicial scrutiny and oversight.
Mohamed Farouq El-Sayyed, a Shi’a Muslim, and seven others arrested with him, remained in administrative detention without charge or trial at Damanhour Prison although courts had ordered his release at least seven times.
He and 11 others had been arrested in April/May 2009; all were suspected of trying to set up an organization to promote Shi’a Islam in a manner deemed to be threatening to Islam and the Sunni Muslim community.
The prosecution released all 12, but they were detained by the Interior Ministry. Four were subsequently released.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Torture and other ill-treatment of security detainees and criminal suspects were systematic in police stations, prisons and SSI detention centres and, for the most part, committed with impunity. In some instances, police assaulted suspects openly and in public as if unconcerned about possible consequences.
In other instances, police were reported to have threatened victims against lodging complaints. In April, the Interior Ministry agreed to pay a total of 10 million Egyptian pounds (US$1.76 million) as compensation to 840 members of Gamaa Islamiya, an Islamist group, who had been tortured; however, no action is known to have been takenagainst those responsible for their torture.
In rare cases, the authorities prosecuted police alleged to have committed assaults, although generally these were cases that had received wide publicity. Those convicted tended to receive lenient sentences.
Taha Abdel Tawwab Mohamed, a medical doctor, said he was stripped and beaten by SSI officers in Fayoum on 7 March because of his public support for Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who the authorities consider a government critic. He was released the next day. His lawyer filed a complaint but no action was known to have been taken.
Deaths in custody
At least four people were alleged to have died in custody as a result of torture or other ill-treatment.
Khaled Said was severely assaulted by two police officers in plain clothes in front of witnesses at an internet café in Alexandria on 6 June, apparently
causing his death. The case provoked a public outcry and two police officers from Sidi Gaber police station were charged with unlawfully arresting and torturing him, although not with direct responsibility for his death. Their trial, sessions of which were attended by Amnesty International observers, was continuing at the end of 2010.
AllAfrica – All the Time
See more here:
Amnesty’s Report on Egypt’s Human Rights Record