Tag: torture

Egypt prosecutor detains officer accused of torture

Posted on By 3arabawy

Great news! The officer who tortured and sexually abused driver Emad Kabeer will be prosecuted.

But that will not end the practice. Those are not just “few rotten apples.” Mubarak’s policing system is classist, abusive, unprofessional and repressive. Still the campaign launched by the Egyptian bloggers and the independent press was strong enough to push the regime to start investigating the case. This sends a powerful message to anyone who’s involved in torture: Your victims will not be silent any more:

Egypt prosecutor detains officer accused of torture
26 Dec 2006
CAIRO, Dec 26 (Reuters) – An Egyptian prosecutor ordered the four-day detention of a police officer accused of sexually assaulting a prisoner, judicial sources said on Tuesday.
They said prosecutor Bakr Ahmad Bakr questioned assistant-investigation officer Islam Nabih on Tuesday. He also ordered the detention of Reda Fathi, a non-commissioned officer, for four days.
A video circulated on Egyptian blogs last month and sparked uproar. It showed Imad al-Kabir, a bus driver, lying on the floor, naked from the waist down, with his hands bound behind his back and his legs held in the air.
He screams and begs as he is sodomised with a stick while those around him, whose faces are not visible, taunt him.
Kabir’s lawyer has said the torture took place in January 2006 in a police station in Bulaq al-Dakrur after Kabir was detained and beaten for intervening to stop an argument between the police officers and his brother.

Citizens storm police station

Posted on By 3arabawy

Two new police related videos surfaced online. One video, recorded by a mobile phone, is of several hundred Alexandrians last spring trying to break into El-Montazah police station to take revenge for the March 2006 killing of 19-year-old Youssef Khamis Ibrahim by a police agent in cold blood. As the funeral was passing in front of the police station, the mourners pelted it with stones and tried to break into it. A big number of demonstrators managed to break into the police station and destroyed its front wall. The clashes injured a number of policemen and destroyed some police vehicles. More than eight persons were detained.

The other video is of the Interior Ministry’s “thugs militia” attacking Muslim Brotherhood activists and voters in front of a polling station in El-Ramla constituency in Alexandria, during the November 2005 parliamentary elections.

HRW to Egypt: Hold police accountable for torture

Posted on By 3arabawy

The case of Emad Ali Kabeer, the Bulaq al-Dakrour driver who was sexually abused by police officers, is drawing more public attention.

Al-Masry Al-Youm interviewed Emad, who recounted again the torture odyssey he went through, adding, “I would have given up my rights, if the video clip has not circulated the internet.”

Thanks to blogger Demagh Mak who discovered and uploaded the video clip to the cyberspace, making it possible for millions around the world to watch the Interior Ministry’s systematic crimes against the Egyptian people.

Moreover, international rights watchdogs are getting involved in the case. Human Rights Watch interviewed Emad and issued a statement today, calling for the prosecution of the police officers involved in the torture video clip.

Here’s a Reuters report by Aziz El-Kaissouni:

Rights group demands prosecution of Egypt torturers
CAIRO, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch called on Egypt to prosecute police officers it said videotaped themselves sexually assaulting a prisoner and then distributed copies of the tape to intimidate local bus drivers.
In a news release on Saturday, Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, said prosecuting the officers would be “a good first step”. The government must change the culture that made torture in jails routine, she said.
The video circulated on Egyptian blogs last month and sparked uproar. It showed Imad al-Kabir, a microbus driver, lying on the floor, naked from the waist down, with his hands bound behind his back and his legs held in the air.
He screams and begs as he is sodomised with a stick while those around him, whose faces are not visible, taunt him.
Kabir’s lawyer said the torture took place in January 2006 in a police station in Bulaq al-Dakrur after Kabir was detained and beaten for intervening to stop an argument between the police officers and his brother.
An interior ministry spokesman said “investigations are continuing and we’re waiting for the prosecution to finish its work.”
Kabir’s lawyer Nasser Amin of the Center for the Independence of the Judiciary says Kabir kept silent even after police distributed the video of the rape among other bus drivers. He finally decided to come forward in November when his brother was detained at the same police station.
After Kabir filed a complaint with the authorities, Amin said, the officers threatened him and his family, forcing him to withdraw the complaint and threaten to sue a newspaper that had published his account of the assault.
Amin subsequently persuaded Kabir to bring the case to the public prosecutor. The officers were questioned and released to resume their duties.
Amin said he planned to file a complaint demanding the arrest of the six officers who participated in torturing Kabir.