Year: 2007

Police brutality does not exclude military officers

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received the following statement from the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence:

Police brutality does not exclude military officers
Until when shall we continue to complain of police violations to no avail?
Until when shall we continue to condemn and protest police practices that have gone beyond any control?
Until when will victims of police torture continue to live deprived of their dignity in the absence of any official measure to grant them justice, reclaim their violated pride or punish those who violated them?
This is a new story in the series of police violations who seem never to take a break in their ongoing mission of torturing Egyptian citizens. The “hero” this time is intelligence assistant at Ismailia police station, officer Ahmad Hassan, his friends and his assistants.
The victim this time is citizen Adel El Sha’er, retired military officer, who was subject to an orgy of torture both at his home and at the Ismailia police station.
Mr. El Sha’er wrote his complaint and sent it to the President, who is also the High military commander, the minister of defense, the association of war veterans, the minister of justice, the minister of interior and the ministry of interior inspection directorate. Still the assaulting officer is in his office and the violations continue.
Mr. El Sha’er’s complaint includes the following:
“On the 28th of December 2006 the landlord of the building in which I live had an argument with me, in an attempt to make me leave my flat which I had rented since 1991. I called the police who came and started filing my complaint. In the meantime officer Ahmad Hassan, intelligence assistant at Ismailia police station arrived with four people, all in plain clothes. I asked who those people were and the answer was a wave of verbal abuse followed by beatings by the officer himself. He then ordered his informers to carry me from all four limbs. They stripped me of my clothes in front of my wife and daughters. When my wife intervened to tell them that I was a respectable person and a former military officer and that it was inappropriate to treat me in that way, she was met with a similar wave of verbal abuse. They carried me in this way to a police truck where the beating continued. Then to the police station. They put me in a room. The officer walked in and ordered his assistants to handcuff my hands behind my back. The verbal abuse continued accompanied with slapping until my face bled and I lost consciousness. They then carried me to a room called the “fridge”. I was naked and handcuffed and remained like that until I was summoned to the evening prosecution. The prosecution documented the apparent injuries and the prosecutor ordered my medical examination.”
The ENT department at the Ismailia general hospital confirmed the presence of “hemorrhagic effusion behind the left ear with reduced hearing ability recommending surgery”.
Despite the medical report and the confirmation of torture, yet officer Ahmad Hassan continues to carry out his job in the same place using the same “methodology”. In addition harassment of Mr. El Sha’er began to force him to withdraw his complaint.
Until when?
Cairo 8 May 2007

Egyptian parliament strips 2 MB lawmakers of immunity

Posted on By 3arabawy

AP report by Nadia Abou El-Magd:

CAIRO _ Egypt’s Parliament on Wednesday stripped two Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers of their immunity as parliament members, in a move that clears the way for their arrests, a spokesman for the group said.
The two, Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, were briefly detained last month as part of an ongoing crackdown against the country’s most powerful opposition group. They were not questioned by prosecutors while in detention and were released the following day.
Twelve other members of the Islamic group were arrested with the two in the northern Nile Delta province of Menoufiya. They were ordered detained for 15 days, pending further investigation, accused of spreading Brotherhood propaganda.
Abu Zeid said the assembly decision was “not legal but political,” masterminded by the government to intimidate the Brotherhood’s political figures and curb their influence. Speaking outside the parliament building, he said the Brotherhood were “not scared by this.”
Under Egyptian law, lawmakers often enjoy immunity from prosecution unless the Parliament gives clearance for a legal investigate.
“It’s very evident that this is a fabricated political case against the Brotherhood,” said Hamdi Hassan, a spokesman of the Brotherhood in the Parliament. “The authorities could have asked the parliament for a permission to question them, without lifting their immunity. Meanwhile, the immunity of ruling party lawmakers who have committed serious crimes against Egyptians remains intact.”
Hassan said that the Brotherhood block in Parliament, as well as 19 other lawmakers of the ruling National Democratic Party, voted against the motion to strip the two of immunity, but “even the brave can be outnumbered.”
“Instead of apologizing for violating the immunity of the lawmakers (in their detention) … the authorities regrettably went too far this time in unjust treatment,” Hassan said.
The Brotherhood has been banned since 1954 but has continued to operate and has become the country’s largest opposition group. Its lawmakers, who run as independents, hold 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament.
Wednesday’s two lawmakers were the first two members of the group to be stripped of immunity since the 2005 elections.
In recent months, the Egyptian government intensified its crackdown on the Brotherhood, arresting more than 300 members since December.
A military trial of 40 top figures from the group on terrorism and money laundering charges began last week under heavy secrecy. Even though an Administrative Court decided in a rare ruling Tuesday that President Hosni Mubarak’s order to try the 40 before a military court was not valid, the state appealed the decision on Wednesday.
In related developments, authorities have extended the detentions of Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, a well known young blogger and journalist, and 18 others, mostly students, for another 15 days, said their lawyer Gamal Tag and also police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the media. They have already been detained for a month.
Local and international human rights groups have condemned the arrests that are part of the crackdown on bloggers, both Islamists and secularists.
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Associated Press writer Omar Sinan contributed to this report from Cairo.