Category: Blog

Mustafa Shehata to face administrative investigation

Posted on By 3arabawy

Police Lieutenant Mustafa Shehata who appeared in the notorious “slaps” video will be referred to an “administrative punitive board within the Giza Security Directorate,” reported Al-Masry Al-Youm. This means basically Shehata will sit in front of a bunch of fellow police officers to be judged for showering detainee Ahmad Gad with slaps (and who knows what else happened without being recorded).

The charges leveled against Shehata include employing “brute force” against a citizen in custody. Egyptian law does not recognize “torture” except if the abuse fiesta’s purpose was “extracting information.” The same goes for Police Captain Islam Nabih and Corporal Reda Fathi, who sexually abused driver Emad Kabeer in Bulaq al-Dakrour Police Station. They will face charges of “employing brute force” against a citizen, and not “torture.” Why? Because they inserted a stick up Emad’s ass for the sake of fun, and not for “extracting information.”

Al-Masry Al-Youm also reported that Shehata identified the detainee in the video clip, but accused him of being a child molester, and denied abusing him in anyway.

Govt intimidates Al-Jazeera reporter

Posted on By 3arabawy

The State Security Prosecutor is interrogating an Al-Jazeera reporter on charges of “possessing material that harms national security and tarnishes the country’s image.”

Howeida Taha was doing a documentary on torture in the Arab World. She had recorded testimonies of torture victims and had videos of police brutality. Police stopped her at the airport on 8 January while leaving for Doha, and confiscated 50 videotapes, according to Al-Jazeera’s website that also said the reporter had notified previously the Interior Ministry of her project and received the required permissions.

Howeida will show up today (Sunday) morning again at the State Security Prosecutor’s office in el-Tagammu el-Khames district in Nasr City for further investigation.

On another front, yesterday’s Al-Fagr reported that Police Captain Islam Nabih is enjoying a comfortable status in “prison.” Islam, who turned out to be the son of former Security Director of Sohag Governorate Nabih Abdel Salam, is currently locked up at an officers’ detention facility attached to the Giza Security Forces camp. He spends his day, according to Al-Fagr, hanging out at the court yard in front of the officers’ bureaus, and then spends the night at his cell. He has a mobile phone, wears his own jeans and personal plainclothes, not the white prison uniform, and receives his police friends who stay up as late as 1am with him, Al-Fagr added.

In other developments, Human Rights Watch issued a statement yesterday, voicing similar concerns to those made by Amnesty International and lawyer Nasser Amin, about the risk of torture Emad Kabeer is facing in prison.

UPDATE: HR-INFO condemned the crackdown on Al-Jazeera, in a statement today.

UPDATE: Taha was released on a 10,000 Egyptian-pound ($1,754) bail.

Updates from Nasser Amin

Posted on By 3arabawy

I met Nasser Amin, Emad Kabeer‘s lawyer this afternoon.

Rights Lawyer Nasser Amin ناصر أمين المحامي

Nasser said Emad was still detained in a General Giza Court cell. The standard procedure with defendants convicted in court, said Nasser, is to transfer the prisoner on the same day or the following to the police station where the prisoner’s ID is registered; and from there he/she would be transferred to a prison. In Emad’s case this means he should have been transferred earlier to Bulaq al-Dakrour Police Station–where he was sexually abused–and from there probably he would be taken to Wadi el-Natron or Tora prison. Delaying Emad’s transfer uptil now, Nasser was guessing, could mean the government might skip the Bulaq bus stop, and just ship him directly to a prison. Nasser was more worried, though, about Emad in prison than him being in Bulaq. He said Emad has become such a high profile prisoner that the police wouldn’t dare messing with him in a police station, from where news can travel out fast. In prison, however, news trickle out much slower. “They can lock him up with dangerous criminals who also liaise with security,” Nasser told me. “Mysterious accidents” could happen.

Amnesty International shares the same concerns as Nasser. The rights watchdog issued a statement yesterday expressing concerns about Emad’s safety in prison.

Amnesty International is calling on the Egyptian authorities to ensure the safety of torture victim Emad Muhammad Ali Muhammad, known as Emad al-Kabir, and his protection from further intimidation or reprisal while in prison. This is key to ensure justice is done during the trial on 3 March 2007 of two police officers charged with torturing him, including with rape, in January last year.

Regarding the video where a woman is being whipped by a plainclothes, Nasser had initial leads that pointed to the identity of the victim who was believed to be working at the State TV & Radio building. Unfortunately, the leads turned out to be false. The identity of the victim hasn’t been revealed yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yli-bbTgnvQ

As for Lieutenant Mustafa Shehata of El-Haram Police Station, who appeared in the infamous video slapping citizen Ahmad Gad on the face, Nasser said no trial date had been set yet, but Monsieur Shehata is now suspended from work, and his trial is imminent.

Finally, Nasser expressed great admiration for the role of bloggers and Al-Fagr newspaper in exposing police brutality. But he also warned of increased police interest in the blogosphere, and expected, if not a crackdown, a state grand campaign to discredit the bloggers.