By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 5th, 2011
Human Rights Watch (HRW) just released a damning report regarding the police state of Egypt’s current tyrant, President Hosni Mubarak.
Among other crimes, the study–entitled, “Work On Him Until He Confesses”: Impunity for Torture In Egypt–reveals that under Mubarak, torture is an “epidemic, affecting large numbers of ordinary citizens who [find] themselves in police custody as suspects, or in connection with criminal investigations.”
As one reads this study–which covers the last several years of Mubarak’s misrule–it becomes apparent that the question is not ‘Why are the Egyptian people in revolt?’, but rather ‘What took the people of the Nile so long?’
Below, The American Spark offers quotes from this fascinating HRW report:
Egypt’s Torture Epidemic
The guys would say they’d be tortured so bad, they’d be screaming, ‘Tell me what you want me to say! Tell us what to say and we’ll say it!’ They’d agree to confirm anything State Security wanted.
—L.S., former SSI detainee, describing the experience of fellow detainees, Cairo, July 11, 2007
“Security forces’ routine use of torture initially targeted political dissidents, or those suspected of being dissidents, whether armed or peaceful. Torture subsequently became epidemic, affecting large numbers of ordinary citizens who found themselves in police custody as suspects, or in connection with criminal investigations.
“The practice of torture in Egypt, and the government’s failure to hold perpetrators to account, occurs within the broader context of the state of emergency that has been in place since 1981, which has effectively created a culture of exceptionalism in which security forces operate outside the law.
“This is most apparent in the practice of arbitrary detention, the role of the State Security Investigations unit (SSI), and the parallel system of state security courts and prosecutors.
“An emergency law has been in force almost continuously in Egypt since 1967, and without interruption since Hosni Mubarak became president in October 1981, after Anwar Sadat’s assassination. The law gives the executive—in practice the Interior Ministry—extensive powers to suspend basic rights by prohibiting demonstrations and detaining people indefinitely without charge.
“The UN Committee against Torture concluded in 2002 that the state of emergency was ‘hindering the full consolidation of the rule of law in Egypt’ and recommended that Egypt ‘eliminate all forms of administrative detention,’ a position echoed most recently in October 2010 by [UN] Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin in his report on his mission to Egypt.
“The Egyptian government has periodically justified the need to extend the state of emergency on the basis of ‘continued terrorist threats,’ most recently on May 11, 2010, when it renewed the law for a further two years.
“At the time, Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif said that terrorists had ‘targeted the state, seeking to undermine its foundations over the last three decades with political assassinations and attempts to stoke sectarian strife’ and that ‘the application of the emergency law has spared the nation the threats of terrorism and stopped many terrorist crimes before they could be committed.’
“[But] Egyptian defense lawyers and human rights groups estimate that at least 5,000 people currently remain in long-term detention without charge under the emergency law, some for more than a decade.
“The fact that they are not charged is particularly significant because the definition of torture in article 126 of the Egyptian penal code is limited to ‘the accused,’ and therefore excludes detainees who, under the emergency law, are not charged with any crime.
“These detainees theoretically have some procedural rights even under these restrictive laws: for example, officers must immediately inform them of the reason for their arrest, allow them to contact family and legal counsel, and provide for the right to appeal their detention after 30 days. Yet security officials routinely fail to respect even these minimal guarantees provided by the emergency law, and often ignore, with impunity, court orders for the release of detainees.
“Frequently, SSI officials flatly deny or refuse to acknowledge the detention or the whereabouts of a person, thereby effectively carrying out enforced disappearances.
“In a January 2010 UN joint report on secret detentions and international law, two special rapporteurs and two working groups wrote:
…the link between secret detention and torture and other forms of ill treatment is twofold: secret detention as such may [itself] constitute torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment – and secret detention may be used to facilitate torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
“The decades-long application of emergency law, entailing wide and unchecked powers of law enforcement when dealing with suspected ‘threats to national security,’ has impacted police behavior when it comes to dealing with ordinary crime, instilling them with a sense that they are above the law.
“This perception–that many wary citizens share—is reinforced by the fact that successful prosecutions of ordinary police officers are still extremely rare.”
