Tag: state propaganda

Interior Ministry: We torture 5 out of 1000 detainees!

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence has sent a letter to General Ahmad Diaa the Assistant to the Interior Minister, asking him to clarify his statements to Al-Masry Al-Youm on 17 January, where the General accused some newspapers of inciting the public against the Interior Ministry over the issue of torture. The general added that: “The percentage of torture in Egypt over the past few months has been 5 out 1000.”

Yep that’s the quote!!

Well, I’m also interested in understanding what General Diaa said. Does this mean that the Interior Ministry is officially acknowledging that five detainees out of 1000 are tortured every “few months”?!! Ok, great, it’s such a low “percentage” indeed. Did General Diaa, and his boss General Habib el-Adly refer the officers involved in those “5 out of 1000” cases to court? Were they disciplined? Who are those unlucky “5 out of 1000”? Have the victims been compensated?

UPDATE: The Nadim Center sent me an English translation of their statement:

El-Nadim Center For the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Clarification needed from the assistant to the Minister of Interior
5/1000… What?!
On the front page of its Wednesday the 17th of January issue, El Masri El Yom daily newspaper published a piece of news, at the end of which General Ahmad Diaa El Din, assistant to the Minister of Interior accuses independent newspapers of adopting an “agitating methodology” in publishing about torture issues. He said: “I am not referring to a particular newspaper. This is an “aggressive” campaign that targets the achievement of certain objectives and the prevalence of torture during the last months did not go beyond 5/1000!!!!!
We cannot but welcome parts of the statement of the assistant to the Minister of Interior, since this is the first time that a government official admits to what human rights organizations have been saying for months and years, namely that torture is widespread to the extent that can be measured by a percentage. It is a confession that denies previous allegations by the Ministry of Interior that torture does not go beyond individual malpractices that does not amount to a phenomenon. However, since the assistant to the Minister of Interior himself has specified a “percentage”, even if it is only 5/1000, it follows that we are talking about a phenomenon and not merely individual breaches.
This part we welcome. It is definitely a step ahead, even if it was not meant to be.
Still the statement of the assistant to the Minister of Interior includes more than one point which need further clarification:
Firstly; why does the assistant to the Minister of Interior consider publishing on crimes of torture an act of agitation? And who is the target population for this agitation? Is it Egyptian public opinion, who from the point of view of the Ministry of Interior, should not know about what is happening in police stations and state security headquarters? Or is it the victims of torture themselves who in his opinion do not deserve to share their pains and humiliation by the police, which was meant to be in the “service of the people” before the Ministry changed its slogan and mandate to be in “service of the (emergency) law”? Or is the assistant to the Minister of Interior concerned of agitating international public opinion who knows more about torture in Egypt than do most Egyptians to the extent that Egypt has become one of the countries to which the US administration exports victims to be tortured on its behalf? Does the assistant to the Minister of Interior wish the press to be silent so that his officers might torture in peace?
Secondly; the assistant to the Minister of Interior describes publishing about torture crimes as an aggressive campaign that targets certain objectives. We hope that the assistant to the Minister of Interior would clarify what he means by those “certain objectives” targeted by the campaign. In the meantime, it might help if we clarified our objectives of this “aggressive” campaign which we would rather describe as a “courageous” campaign, for our objectives are clear and no secret: We wish Egyptian public opinion to be informed of the crimes committed by the police, not only against members of political opposition but against each and everybody whose bad luck crosses his path with that of the police, whether through an investigation, a suspicion, a complement to a third party or merely because of an argument where an Egyptian citizen might refuse to be verbally abused by another, just because this other serves in the Ministry of Interior, and irrespective whether this other is wearing a uniform or not. We clearly target the exposure of those torturers to public opinion and to investigative and judiciary bodies because we target that they be held accountable for their crimes, that they be deprived of the impunity they enjoy and that victims of torture be able to reclaim some of their injured dignity. And we shall continue to do so.
Thirdly and finally; we hope that the assistant to the Minister of Interior would complete his last sentence where he says that the prevalence of torture does not go beyond 5/1000. And our question is: 5/1000 what? Does he mean 5/1000 of the Egyptian population suffer torture? Or that 5/1000 of Egyptian police commit the crime of torture? Or that 5/1000 citizens who visit police stations are subject to torture?
We await the clarifications by the assistant to the Minister of Interior. Until we receive those it may be appropriate that the Ministry disclose the information regarding those 5/1000: disclose the names of the victims so that we can help them through rehabilitation, apologize to them from the crimes committed against them and present those torturers to justice to receive the punishment they deserve.
We are waiting.
20 January 2007

Attacks lead to political accusations in Egypt

Posted on By 3arabawy

From AP, by Nadia Abou El-Magd:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP)_ An alleged mob attack on women during last week’s Islamic holiday has escalated into a political fight involving President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Witnesses accuse police of doing nothing to protect the women as they walked on a downtown street, and democracy activists have cited the controversy as a sign that Egypt is mismanaged and corrupt.
But the government has accused the bloggers who publicized the incident of defaming the country, and some police officials have said there is no evidence that anything happened.
A handful of Internet bloggers, who said they either witnessed or spoke with eyewitnesses in downtown Cairo the nights of Oct. 23 and 24, reported that women of all ages and styles of dress were attacked by crowds of men and boys who groped them and tore their clothes, trying to remove them. Some women wore headscarves or full Islamic veils and others were with their families, the bloggers said.
“Anything that moves and smells like a female was attacked,” said Wael Abbas, a democracy activist, blogger and eyewitness, who published photographs of the alleged attacks on his blog.
Crowds of people filled Cairo’s streets on those nights to celebrate the beginning of Eid el-Fitar, the three-day holiday that marks Ramadan’s end.
But Interior Ministry officials, quoted on condition of anonymity in the Egyptian press, said they had received no complaints of such attacks, and dismissed the controversy. “We should close the file on disparaging rumors,” said one police official quoted in Al Ahram, Egypt’s biggest government daily.
The government has given no other official comment.
But an editorial in Rose el-Youssef, the staunch pro-government daily, on Tuesday carried the headline: “To what extent are they just defaming Egyptians?” The author singled out Abbas for condemnation, accusing him of fabricating a “sexual revolution downtown.”
Opposition newspapers and activists have seized on the incident to broadly criticize Mubarak’s government for a long series of grievances. A similar outcry occurred after a ferry sank in the Red Sea in February, killing more than 1,000 mostly poor laborers.
“Nothing amazes me in Egypt lately … but what happened during Eid took me back to sad surprises,” wrote Sahar el-Mougy, a female novelist and activist, in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm on Monday.
While low-level harrasment of women is common in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, crime and assault reports are rare and police are pervasive _ usually on the streets in large numbers.
Some criticized the police for allegedly being more concerned with protecting Mubarak and his circle of allies than ordinary citizens, while others attacked Mubarak directly.
They are a political force in the service of the regime and not of the citizens,” said Aida Seif el-Dawla, an activist and the director of the Al-Nadim Center for the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence.
Some activists also suggested a link between the recent alleged attack and attacks on women activists and journalists during a referendum vote last year.
“It was the security forces who introduced the culture of violating women when they tore the clothes of Kifaya (an opposition group) female activists, said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi writing Wednesday.
Security officials have said the clashes during a 2005 referendum, held to determine whether more than one candidate would be allowed to run in Egyptian presidential elections, were between Mubarak supporters and Kifaya members and that security officials were not involved.
But Associated Press reporters at the scene then saw plainclothes agents taking instructions from both uniformed and non-uniformed government security officers.
Both Kifaya, a secular opposition movement, and Islamic opposition groups have complained of frequent organized police harrasment during political protests.
But the bloggers said the latest alleged attacks seemed to break out spontaneously among men in the crowds.
Bloggers and activists speculated that a range of factors could have inspired the attacks, including possible sexual frustration among men because sex before marriage is taboo and economic difficulties often force men to wait to marry.