22 - 28 March 2001
Issue No.526
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 March 2001 Issue No.526 |
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'Not enough to eradicate torture'
While noting some "positive steps" to improve Egypt's human rights record, Amnesty International's report on torture in Egypt insisted the country had a long way to go. Amira Howeidy reports
Amnesty International's (AI) recently issued report on torture in Egypt contained nothing new in terms of its documentation of a number of torture cases. It recognised, however, positive efforts by the government in the form of greater emphasis on human rights training for state employees and the announcement last year of a ban on flogging and caning in prisons.
While welcoming these steps, AI stated they are "not enough to eradicate torture." Hence the title of the report, "Torture remains rife as cries for justice go unheeded."
Although the 36-page report offers comprehensive data on torture in Egypt -- individual cases, verdicts of civil courts acknowledging torture, Egyptian legislation on torture and ill-treatment and Egypt's reports before the UN committee on torture -- the vast majority of cases presented date back to the 1990s. For example, to support its argument that authorities not only conceal investigation results, but actually protect the perpetrators, AI cited the seven-year-old case of Islamist lawyer Abdel-Harith Madani, who died while in police custody in 1994.
Victims of torture, according to the report, are not limited to the politically active. Many victims of torture and ill-treatment are suspects held in police stations in connection with criminal cases. "People at the margins of society -- in particular the poor, the less educated and illiterate -- are more likely to be subjected to torture and ill-treatment," the report said.
Indeed, several courts have found police officers guilty of torturing those in their custody, but AI argues that in all these trials the detainees were held in connection with criminal charges. Noting bias, AI claims that it "knows of no case involving the torture or death of a political detainee in which a member of the State Security Intelligence (SSI) has been convicted."
In November 2000, according to the report, Aswan Criminal Court sentenced two police officers charged with torture and unpremeditated murder to prison terms of three and seven years -- the harshest known sentence of a police officer in such a case. Indeed, AI described the case as "exceptional," because "in many other cases known to Amnesty International, those responsible for the deaths of detainees have escaped punishment of any kind." And although compensation has been awarded to hundreds of torture victims, the vast majority of these cases, it stated, have not led to prosecution of the perpetrators in criminal courts, even when detailed and specific evidence was brought before civil courts and accepted by them.
A reading of torture cases shows no discrimination between political and criminal detainees. Local rights activists such as Hafez Abu Se'da, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, argue that in many cases, torture is simply conducted out of "laziness." Torturing suspects is an "easy" way to extract information, as opposed to carrying out investigations, which requires effort.
A case in point, documented in the Amnesty report, is that of 17-year-old Tamer Muhsin Mohamed Ali, who was killed while in police custody on suspicion of theft in 1997.
"The Egyptian government continues to violate its international obligations," the report concluded, "as well as Egypt's own laws which require it to take necessary steps to protect people from human rights violations." Since the vast majority of torture cases are not investigated, it argued, "those responsible evade punishment."
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