Activists involved in the solidarity with the Sarando peasants (victims of police torture and assaults from NDP-affiliated feudalists) have arranged for buses to be ready, in front of the Lawyers’ Syndicate in Ramses St. at 6 am, to transport any citizen or journalist interested in attending the trial in Damanhour on 22 January.
Your presence is IMPORTANT!
The Interior Ministry should stop hassling reporters and instead investigate the systematic torture happening within Egyptian police stations, nine local human rights organizations told General Habib el-Adly today in a joint statement.
The rights watchdogs denounced the harassment Al-Jazeera reporter Howeida Taha is facing for attempting to do a documentary on torture in Egypt’s and Arab prisons.
In other developments, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported today the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence has sent General Adly a letter with the names of 189 police officers involved in torture cases demanding their investigation. The detailed list, put together by the anti-torture clinic, included also the police stations these officers work at, the names and dates of some of the victims they tortured.
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.