Nadeem Center in the occasion of December 10:The International Day for Human Rights
Torture in Egypt – A State Policy
Third Report by Nadim Center
10 December 2007

December 2007

This booklet is the third report released by El Nadim Center for the Psychological Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence covering torture and organized state violence in the period 2003 – 2006. It is the period which has witnessed the beginning of political mobilization demanding democracy and justice, as well as the period which has witnessed, probably as a result of this mobilization, an escalation of state violence and restrictions upon the rights to freedom of expression, gathering, demonstration and organization, as well as an increase in the brutality and practice of torture in police stations, state security headquarters, security offices in metro stations and universities as well as on the streets.

The major part of this booklet covers events to which El Nadim was witness, including victims who found their way to the center and others whom the center had sought out. It also includes documentation of events which we have witnessed and others where we ourselves were subject to this very police violence. The first chapter of the report carries the testimonies of victims who survived torture in Egyptian police stations. Those are the survivors who were met by members of El Nadim center in person. The implicated police stations extend from Helwan, to Sayeda Zeinab, to Kasr El Nil, to Abul Nomros to El Warraq to Mashtoul El Suq to Port Said to Montazah and Bab Shark in Alexandria and Kaft Sakr, Dekernes, El Saf, Menya El Qamh and others: A list which provides evidence that the map of torture has become the map of the country. The second chapter contains the testimonies of those who exited alive from state security headquarters in Gaber Ben Hayyan and Lazoughli.. Missing among those testimonies are the stories of Ashraf Said Yucef, Akram Abdel Aziz Sabri, Mohamed El Sayyed Negm, Mohamed Yucef Soliman, Mohamed Abdel Sattar El Rubi, Mohamed Abdel Qader El Sayed, and Mosaad Sayed Mohamed Qutb who were killed in those butcheries, which are protected by an endless emergency state and the closure of torture files at the office of the Public Prosecutor.

In its third chapter we document the crimes of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior committed in the village of Sarando where the police mobilized its forces and men to evict poor farmers from their land, through an invasion that lasted for several weeks and resulted in the death of Nefisa El Marakbi, wife and mother of two children. Nefisa was detained, her veil was torn off her head, she was ridiculed for being dark and was beaten up and sexually harassed. It is noted that Nefisa herself was never in possession of any land. The fourth chapter carries the stories of two cities, Arish and Sheikh Zouaied, which have been subject to a massive security raid in 2004 resulting in the detention of more than 3000 people and hostage taking of tens of women in place of their husbands, sons and brothers. It also carries the testimonies of the few we have personally met after their release from detention, several of whom were no longer able to move because of the beating, the hanging and the torture with electric chocks by the hands of the police. The following chapters cover events of collective police violence, which involved different sectors of Egyptians society and at the time of their occurrence turned the country into something akin to a battlefield. In those chapters we document the detentions and torture that accompanied the demonstrations protesting the US invasion of Iraq and the solidarity movement with the uprising of the judges demanding independence of the judiciary. They document the testimonies of women who were subject to sexual harassment in the middle of the streets of Cairo and in mid day upon their participation in the demonstrations protesting the mock referendum concerning the constitutional amendments, introduced by the ruling party to maintain the status quo and prepare the stage for the succession of the presidency.

They also document the massacres that accompanied the last parliamentary elections in 2005, which saw the killing of at least 10 citizens in what the state described as the most transparent and impartial elections in the history of the country. The final chapter of the report describes again what we had previously released as an independent report, concerning the Mostafa Mahmoud massacre, taking place in December 2005 and resulting in the death of at least 30 Sudanese refugees, including children, who were killed by the clubs and stampede of Egyptian security forces in the middle of central Cairo and in front of the office of UNHCR. Two lists conclude our third report: the first carries a few of the names of citizens who entered into police stations alive and left them to the graveyards. The lsit does not include the names of those who were killed during the last three months, who were either drowned, burnt, beaten or thrown to their death by the Egyptian police. Our report stops at the end of 2006. It does not mention Naser Seddik Gadallah, nor child Mohamed Mamdouh or Yehia, or Mohamed Nasr Abu Sobeih or Ahmed el Sayed Abdel Fahim and others who were killed by the police in 2007. The last among those, as of today, is citizen Emad Hamdi Abdel Moneim, 31 years old, married and father to a daughter barely two months old. He was killed in Omraneyya police station only three days ago.
The second list carries only the names of officer, excluding sergeants and informers, who appeared in the testimonies of survivors and prosecution documents. It is the list of those accused of torture. We present this list to Egyptian public opinion, to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, to the Public prosecutor and to the international community. We call for their prosecution, that they be held accountable for their actions and be brought to justice. It is our third report testifying to three years of political oppression and police brutality.. three years of torture and death under torture.. three years to be added to the preceding 24 years of an emergency state that provides impunity and legal protection to the torturers and stands in the way of justice.

This report carries once again our conviction that torture in Egypt is a state policy.. a systematic and organized policy, that consumes the money of tax payers as well as their lives.. a policy subsidized by a budget that, with a different political will, could have spared the Egyptian people the misery of poverty, illness and need. Responsible for that policy are all those who drew it, who approved it and who executed it, from the top of the state to its informers. It is our third report documenting but the tip of the iceberg of the violations committed during the past four years, a tip to which we at El Nadim bare witness.
It is a documentation of what happened, lest we forget when the time comes for accountability and the implementation of justice.

 

December 2007