egypt: Use of Torture, Excessive Force by Cairo Police

Use of Torture, Excessive Force by Cairo Police

(Cairo, March 24, 2003) Hundreds of antiwar activists and demonstrators
have been detained in Cairo and some are being tortured by police, Human
Rights Watch charged today.

Hundreds more have been injured as security forces used water cannons,
clubs, dogs, and even stones against demonstrators. Police have arrested
leaders of movements protesting the Iraq war and Israeli actions in the
Occupied Territories; journalists, professors, and students; and onlookers,
as well as children as young as 15 years old.

Some detainees reported hearing the use of electroshock torture in
neighboring cells.

"The crackdown many feared has come," said Hanny Megally, executive
director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights
Watch. "Fundamental freedoms in Egypt are now under serious threat."

What started two months ago with isolated detentions of demonstrators and
activists has now become a sweeping repression of dissent, Megally said. He
urged Egyptian authorities to immediately investigate credible reports of
excessive use of force, including beatings of demonstrators and torture of
detainees, and to promptly charge or release those arrested.

The arrests followed a massive demonstration in Tahrir Square in downtown
Cairo on Thursday March 20, the first day of the war against Iraq. Tens of
thousands of protestors rallied, closing the square for over ten hours.
While police violently restrained demonstrators from approaching the
vicinity of the U.S. and British embassies, they generally allowed the
protest to proceed in peace.

The following day, Friday March 21, smaller demonstrations throughout
central Cairo drew a violent response. Protesters gathered in areas
including Al-Azhar Mosque, Talaat Harb Square, Ramses Street, and the State
Broadcasting Corporation. While some onlookers reported scattered
stone-throwing by demonstrators, and authorities alleged that protesters
torched a car near Tahrir Square, police cracked down with excessive force,
both arresting large numbers at the demonstrations and using them as a
pretext to detain others.

Eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that mid-afternoon on Friday the
police retaliated against demonstrators who were pushing against a cordon
in Talaat Harb Street. They began beating them with clubs, and then fired
water cannons at them. Many demonstrators were injured. A journalist
present told Human Rights Watch that his digital camera was damaged and the
DVD tape in his video camera confiscated on two separate occasions when he
tried to film police striking demonstrators. He saw dozens of demonstrators
beaten and arrested.

In other demonstrations, four opposition Members of Parliament--Mohammed
Farid Hassanein, Hamdeen Sabahi, Abdel Azim al-Maghrabi, and Haidar
Baghdadi--were beaten by police. Sabahi remains hospitalized. In another
incident, one demonstrator, Muhammed Abdou Taha, reportedly was beaten and
may have suffered a broken spine.

On the evening of March 21, security forces invaded the Lawyers' Syndicate
on Ramses Street, and occupied it for almost six hours. Sayyed Abdel Ghany,
an official of the Syndicate, told Human Rights Watch that over fifteen
lawyers, including some who have defended anti-war demonstrators in the
past, were arrested. Many lawyers were severely beaten. Arrests continued
on March 22. That morning, Marwa Farouq, Shaymaa Samir, and Nourhan
Thabet--three female students who have been prominent antiwar
activists--were arrested while attempting to enter Cairo University to
attend a demonstration. Nourhan Thabet, who is pregnant, was reportedly
beaten, bound and blindfolded. Her whereabouts are unknown and it is feared
she has no access to medical care. Sherine Abul-Naga, a professor at the
university who attended the rally, was arrested afterward but later released.

Police presence at the small university rally was massive and obvious. Like
the Lawyer's Syndicate, Cairo University has traditionally been regarded as
a safe space for dissent, where police forces rarely intervene obtrusively.

Additionally, on the afternoon of March 22, Hossam al-Hamalawi, an Egyptian
journalist and stringer for the Los Angeles Times who has attended recent
anti-war rallies, was arrested while leaving a restaurant in Tahrir Square.
Four plainclothes officers seized him, telling the two friends with him,
"He is known to us to be a dangerous man."

Most of the detainees were reportedly taken to al-Darrassa, a Central
Security (al-Amn al Markazi) barracks in north of Cairo. Others are
believed held at the Lazoughli headquarters of State Security Intelligence
(Mabahith Amn al-Dawla) in Cairo. Human Rights Watch spoke to one person
detained there on March 21 and released early the next morning, who said he
heard five people being threatened with and then tortured with electroshocks.

On the morning of March 22, 61 of the detainees were divided into three
groups and referred to three prosecution offices in Cairo to be charged. At
one prosecution office, Human Rights Watch was able to speak to Gamal 'Id,
arrested on March 21, a member of the Lawyers' Syndicate's Freedoms
Committee and a human rights lawyer. 'Id said that several other detainees
had been beaten so severely on the arms and shoulders that bones appeared
to be broken. He added that 72 people detained in the sweeps shared his
cell at al-Darrassa, including children as young as 15. Human Rights Watch
has documented widespread torture and ill-treatment of children in police
custody. "It is very troubling that many of the witnesses Human Rights
Watch has spoken with describe seeing demonstrators being severely beaten
by the police as they were taken away," said Megally. " It is also worrying
to hear that children have been arrested and are being held in the same
cells as adults."

On the evening of March 22, 'Id and eleven other defendants referred to the
Azbakeyya Prosecutor were given four days in detention, renewable at the
prosecution's discretion. According to the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, an
Egyptian human rights organization, prosecutors examining these twelve
detainees acknowledged that at least four had serious injuries. Fourteen
defendants referred to the Gamalayaa Prosecution Office in Cairo received
15 days' detention, also renewable.

Many of those who have appeared before prosecutors have been charged with
offenses such as blocking traffic or destroying public property. Some have
been charged with holding a gathering of five or more people without a
permit--a crime under Egyptian law.

Human Rights Watch Press release