Year: 2007

Bulaq Police torturers trial postponed to 6 May

Posted on By 3arabawy

The trial of Police Captain Islam Nabih and Corporal Reda Fathi, who tortured and sexually abused driver Emad Kabeer in Bulaq el-Dakrour Police Station, was postponed today to 6 May. Emad Kabeer showed up today in court, and testified against the Bulaq police sadists.

Egyptian allegedly tortured by police testifies against officers
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ An Egyptian who was seen being tortured in a widely circulated video testified Monday against the police officers who he claims sexually abused him and used a cell phone to film the abuse.
Emad el-Kabir, 22, tearfully recounted to Judge Samir Aboul Maati and a packed courtroom of the alleged torture he was subjected to last year as the accused men _ Islam Nabih, a police colonel, and Reda Fathi, a noncommissioned officer _ stood nearby in the defendants’ cage.
El-Kabir, wearing a checkered yellow shirt and black pants, said he was kicked and beaten with shoes and a whip and hit with a gun. He said such tactics were the “the norm in any police station.”
But the bus driver broke into tears as he began talking about the alleged sexual abuse.
“They tried to stick a baton in my bottom, forcing me to shout obscenities against myself and my family,” he said. “I repeated these words, and then they threw water on me and ordered me to run like a horse, but my feet hurt so much.”
In November, several Egyptian bloggers posted a video, which also later appeared on the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube, showing a man naked from the waist down being sodomized with a stick. As he screamed in pain, those around him, whose faces are not visible, ridiculed him.
The man was later identified as el-Kabir who said the incident took place in January 2006 at a police station in Bulaq al-Dakrur, a low income neighborhood in Cairo, the Egyptian capital. He said the police video taped the incident on a cell phone, and the footage was later leaked to bloggers.
Police have said el-Kabir was detained and beaten for attempting to stop an argument between his cousin and police. At the time, he was released without any charges against him.
El-Kabir later filed a complaint with the prosecutor general, and in late December, the two police officers were arrested. Their trial started March 3.
Monday was the first time el-Kabir testified against the officers. Despite being initially released by police, he was later jailed for three months after the judge found him guilty of resisting arrest. El-Kabir was released from prison Friday.
Though el-Kabir’s trial is not the first against police officers accused of torture, it is the first in Egypt involving a video that was circulated on the Internet. Other videos of alleged police torture in Egypt have since appeared on blogs, and human Rights groups and activists believe the verdict in el-Kabir’s case could set a precedent.
During el-Kabir’s cross examination, one of Nabih’s lawyers, Said Gamil, cast doubt on the torture allegations and cell video, calling them “fabricated.”
The two accused police officers stood behind bars in the defendants’ cage wearing normal clothes, not the usual white prison jumpsuits. Two noncommissioned officers stood just in front of them inside the cage. The judge refused their lawyers’ request to free them on bail and adjourned the trial until May 6.
Outside the courtroom, el-Kabir told The Associated Press he does not have any regrets.
“I don’t feel weak that I couldn’t defend myself then, the same way they were not strong when they abused me,” he said.
“I feel God is supporting me. They filmed me to humiliate me. I never imagined that these same photos would send them to prison. It’s God’s justice,” el-Kabir added.
Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely used in police stations and in the interrogation of prisoners, but the government denies it is systematic. In recent years, the Ministry of Interior, which supervises detention facilities has investigated many officers on allegations of torture.
Some have been indicted, convicted and received prison sentences, but the punishments have not been harsh even in cases were the victim died because of torture. Many officers also have been pardoned before the end of their sentences.

Solidarity with Qena labor activists

Posted on By 3arabawy

Thirty-seven civil rights organization announced their solidarity with the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, whose branch in the Upper Egyptian town of Naga’a Hammadi (Qena Province) was closed by the security services on Thursday. The Center has earned the state’s wrath since the December 2006 Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, which the government blamed Center’s activists of instigating. The Labor Ministry has also been directing threats and accusations against the Center’s director Kamal Abbas in person. The crackdown on the Center’s branch in Naga’a Hammadi could well be followed by the closure of the center’s branches in Helwan and Mahalla.

Solidarity Statement from Egyptian Civil Society Organizations With the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services “CTUWS”
A Call to Revoke the Decision To Shut Down CTUWS’ Branch in Naj Hamadi

The undersigned Egyptian Civil Society Organizations hereby express their support for and solidarity with the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services “CTUWS” and their strong condemnation to the attacks against CTUWS represented lately in the Administrative Decision No. 44 of the year 2007 issued by General Al Sherbeeny Hasheesh Chairman of the City of Naj Hamadi (Governorate of Qena in Southern Egypt) issued this morning Thursday 29 March 2007 to shut down CTUWS’ branch in the city of Naj Hamadi. The issuance of this decision completes the series of administrative provocations against that Branch throughout the last week, the latest of which was summoning the staff of the said branch to the police station where the Chief Officer told them that the branch must be shut down and that as a police office he is mandated to implement the decision regardless to its validity or legality.
The undersigned Organizations express their great concern for the recurrence to use administrative attacks and pressure techniques against human rights and non governmental organizations while our society seems to have surpassed such practices during the last few years. The undersigned Organizations consider this trend a serious approach and a distressing indication to what may be considered a governmental stand towards the civil society and non governmental organizations, particularly those engaged in human rights and social defence spheres.
The civil society organizations as well as all the alive and democratic powers in our society aspired for salient democratic reforms to expand the space for civil society, not to be subject to the power of the state bodies or to the accusations plotted for them. We were surprised by this administrative decision which represents a direct violation of the right of expression and the right to peaceful democratic organizations. The decision jeopardizes the relationship between the state bodies and the civil society organizations at a time when the move to political reform in our country has become questionable after the amendments to the constitution were approved.
The decision of the Local Council of Naj Hamadi to shut down the CTUWS Branch and the collaboration from the police to enforce the decision which they consider as an enforceable administrative decision even though it was issued by an incompetent body mean that the civil society organizations are besieged by administrative interventions which threaten them from each and every direction. These interventions render the civil society organizations unable to play their role particularly in social defence, monitoring and lobbying against the government bodies.
The undersigned Organizations – which decided on February 12th 2007 to form a permanent committee for solidarity with the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services “CTUWS” and to support it by all means – and which call upon the Governor of Qena and the Minister for Local Government to revoke the decision to shut down CTUWS’ branch in the city of Naj Hamadi, forward this call to all the alive and democratic powers to consolidate with the CTUWS. Meanwhile, the undersigned Organizations call upon all the executive government bodies to respect the fundamental human rights stipulated by international conventions ratified by the Government of Egypt and to give the civil society organizations the opportunity to perform their role which is essential for maintaining social stability and observe the principles of good governance at the present time when people are afraid of the retreat of the limited democratic margin which our society was in a dire need for its expansion and not for its destruction.

Signatories according to alphabetical:
1-Appropriate Communication Technologies for Development (ACT)
2-Afaq Socialist Center
3-Arab and African Research Center
4-Arab Penal Reform Organization (APRO)
5-Arab program for human rights activist
6-Association for Health and Environmental Development (Ahed)
7-Awlad Al-Ard Institution for Human Rights
8-Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies
9-Center for Alternative Development Studies
10-Center for Egyptian Woman’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA)
11-Center for Human Rights legal studies and Information
12-Center for Socialist Studies
13-Civil Monitor for Human Rights
14-Egyptian Association against Torture
15-Egyptian Center for Children’s’ Rights
16-Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
17-El-Nadim Center For the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
18-Forum for development and Human Rights Dialogue
19-Group for Democracy Development
20Hisham Mubarak Law Center
21-Land Center for Human Rights
22-MAAT Center for Juridical and Constitutional Studies
23-Shumuu association for human rights and care for disabled people.
24-The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession
25-The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
26-The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
27-The Egyptian Association For Community Participation Enhancement
28-The Egyptian Association for the Family Development
29-The Egyptian Association for the Support of Democratic Development (EASD)
30-The Egyptian center for Housing Rights
31-The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights
32-The Egyptian Organization For Human Rights
33-The Egyptian Social Democratic Center
34-The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners
35-The Legal Assistance for Human Rights Association
36-The New Woman Foundation
37-The South Center for Human Rights