Tag: sexual abuse

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.

HRW to Mubarak’s regime: Investigate police torture, rape of blogger Sharqawi

Posted on By 3arabawy

The NYC-based rights watchdog issued a statement today, calling on the regime to stop targeting bloggers, and investigate the torture and sexual abuse against leftist blogger Muhammad el-Sharqawi, who was brutalized and sodomized by a State Security officer from the Counter-Communism Bureau (Maktab Mokafahet el-Shyou’eia) with the help of Qasr el-Nil Police Station agents, on 25 May 2006.

Muhammad el-Sharqawi hours before he was kidnapped by State Security on May 25, 2006. Photo courtesy of an activist friend]
Muhammad el-Sharqawi hours before he was kidnapped by State Security on May 25, 2006. Photo courtesy of an activist friend]

Egypt: Investigate Torture, Rape of Activist Blogger
(Cairo, March 19, 2007) — The Egyptian Interior Ministry should immediately investigate and prosecute the torture and rape of pro-democracy activist and blogger Muhammad al-Sharqawi in police custody last year, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities must also protect him from any police intimidation.
Despite repeated requests from al-Sharqawi and his lawyers since the torture took place almost a year ago, authorities have yet to take any visible action to bring those responsible to justice. Al-Sharqawi, who has campaigned against torture and other human rights abuses at street protests, through his personal blog, and through interviews with the press, told Human Rights Watch that an officer he recognized as having been present when he was abused in custody “always seems to be waiting downstairs from my apartment,” and that unidentified men have come to his door to ask him if he was home and if he lives alone. Around 7 pm on March 10, he came home to find his laptop, which he said contained a new, unreleased video of police abuse, had been stolen. Though cash and other valuables were lying around the apartment, nothing else was taken. Al-Sharqawi told Human Rights Watch that he is no longer sleeping at home.
Also on March 10, the State Security Investigations department of the Interior Ministry issued a report to public prosecutors that named al-Sharqawi and 16 other bloggers, journalists and activists as being responsible for “spreading false news” that could harm Egypt’s image abroad and organizing demonstrations. Among those named in report were bloggers Wa’il Abbas and Alaa Seif al-Islam, who have played a central role in campaigning against police abuse through their blogs. The report also named `Abir al-Askari, a journalist for the weekly Al-Dustur who was assaulted by police at a May 11 demonstration, and leading activists from the Kifaya (“Enough”) movement. On March 15, police dispersed a Kifaya demonstration against proposed amendments to Egypt’s constitution and detained 21 protesters for two days.
“Almost a year after al-Sharqawi was tortured and raped in a police station, the authorities have taken no visible steps to hold to account those responsible for the crime,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said. “Rather than allowing police to intimidate and harass this young activist, the Egyptian government should be doing everything it can to prosecute the officers who tortured him.”
Security forces first arrested al-Sharqawi on April 24 at a demonstration in support of judicial independence in Cairo and released him on May 23. Agents of the State Security Investigations (SSI) bureau of the Interior Ministry arrested him again on May 25 as he was leaving another peaceful demonstration in downtown Cairo. The demonstration on May 25 commemorated the one-year anniversary of violent attacks by police and ruling party supporters against journalists and demonstrators, who had been urging a boycott of a constitutional referendum.
Al-Sharqawi told Human Rights Watch that his captors beat him for hours and then raped him with a cardboard tube at the Qasr al-Nil police station before transferring him to the State Security Prosecutor’s office in Heliopolis. When his lawyers saw al-Sharqawi at the prosecutor’s office late at night on May 25, they immediately asked for him to receive a forensic medical examination and treatment for his injuries, which one lawyer described as the worst case of police abuse that he had seen in 12 years. The prosecutor refused this initial request, but noted al-Sharqawi’s injuries, and al-Sharqawi only saw a prison doctor four days later. His lawyers have not seen any report on al-Sharqawi’s injuries drafted by either the prosecutor or doctor, and the Interior Ministry has denied that he was tortured.
Al-Sharqawi’s lawyers said they filed three written requests with General Prosecutor Muhammad Faisal to investigate his allegations of torture, and al-Sharqawi told Human Rights Watch that he also repeatedly told the prosecutor he had been tortured in custody.
The authorities subsequently charged al-Sharqawi with “chanting slogans against the regime liable to disturb public order and social peace,” “insulting the president,” “insulting and assaulting officials in the course of performing their duties,” “calling for an unlicensed assembly,” and “disrupting traffic” and held him at Tora prison until a prosecutor ordered his release on July 18. His case is still open.
“Bloggers have shown the world how torture are endemic in Egypt’s police stations,” said Whitson. “The Egyptian government needs to show the world that it will bring the perpetrators of these serious crimes to justice.”
Egypt is a party to the Convention Against Torture as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is thus obliged to prohibit any form of torture and ill-treatment, and to take positive measures to protect victims by carrying out thorough, impartial and prompt investigations into allegations of torture and filing criminal charges where appropriate. Article 42 of Egypt’s constitution further provides that any person in detention “shall be treated in a manner concomitant with the preservation of his dignity” and that “no physical or moral (m`anawi) harm is to be inflicted upon him.”