EOHR's annual report in Egypt paints a grim picture Hafez Abu Se'da, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) -- Egypt's oldest rights group -- usually weighs his words carefully. However, speaking to members of the press on 2 August after his organisation released its 15th annual human rights report, Abu Se'da was barely able to contain his anger. The report, was released only a few days after police squashed an anti-Mubarak demonstration and, after summarising Egypt's human rights record in 2004, it concluded that the situation had worsened -- despite government attempts to introduce better laws, reports Amira Howeidy. Abu Se'da was asked if he saw a link between what the EOHR report described as "collective punishment", or the mass arrest of between 2,400 to 3,000 people in Arish in connection with last October's bombings in Taba, and the attacks on Sharm El-Sheikh on 23 July. "Of course there is no justification for terrorism," Abu Se'da snapped. "But [Egypt's] security policy and use of torture lead to acts of revenge. "We can't," he added, "separate" excessive use of torture against suspects or taking their relatives hostages "from acts of violence like Sharm El-Sheikh." Such a state policy "reflects the incompetence of the security apparatus and its inability to handle developments," Abu Se'da argued. "If it continues, then violence will continue." Even if it doesn't continue, the situation on the ground as documented by the report is already volatile. "There are at least 20,000 political detainees in Egyptian prisons," Abu Se'da said, "and they have the right to be set free but they're denied that right. So we have 20,000 [human] bombs, [many of them] having spent 10 years of their lives behind bars without trial." In its 500-page report, the EOHR said it documented the cases of 22 people who were tortured to death in the past year alone. In 2003, the EOHR documented eight deaths attributed to torture, which means, in Abu Se'da's words, that human rights violations are drastically increasing in detention centres and prisons. The report noted that there were even more cases of deaths in custody but that the EOHR was unable to document them and thus were not published. None of the deaths were connected with political or terrorist activity. Interior Ministry officials were unavailable for comment on the report's findings. The report documented 42 cases of torture, almost double the number of cases it monitored in 2003, and the highest rate of torture cases in the past five years -- another indication that human rights standards are in decline as "torture in Egypt has become a routine and a systematic practice." Horror stories in the report abound. Omar Mursi, a 23-year-old merchant, was arrested when police came looking for his friend but found him instead. He was tortured by three police officers in the Giza police station. The report said they allegedly beat him with truncheons, poured boiling water over him and put out cigarettes on his body. Iman Abdallah, a 48-year-old housewife, was arrested together with her husband in connection with a theft case. The report said she was beaten, forced to undress completely and was sexually harassed to pressure her into confessing that she had committed a number of "fabricated" crimes. Other cases included electric shocks and threats of rape as torture techniques. The report also listed the names of 66 political detainees who had obtained court release orders in 2004 but remain in detention because the Interior Ministry refuses to set them free. The EOHR did not detect improvement in prison conditions or the treatment of prisoners and detainees. It reported on the spread of torture and mistreatment of prisoners, inadequate medical attention, deprivation of the right to education and prevention of visits and contact with the outside world. Much if not all the violations listed and documented in the annual report were committed because of the unlimited powers which the emergency law -- in force since 1981-- grants the security authorities. Scrapping the law has been a constant demand of rights groups and politicians, only to be ignored by the authorities. But in a recent speech, President Hosni Mubarak hinted he was ready to abolish martial law and replace it with an anti-terror law. Because this development took place as the EOHR was publishing its report, it was not referred to, but Abu Se'da made a point of telling the press conference that his organisation welcomes any anti-terror law as long as it respects human rights and adheres to international standards." To drive his point home, Abu Se'da compared the aftermath of Sharm and London. "Egypt," he said, "arrested 300 in connection with the Sharm El-Sheikh attacks and 3,000 because of Taba, while the UK, for example, arrested only a few people in connection with the London attacks." But the report did monitor "tangible improvements": the formation of the Family Court; abolishment of some military decree orders; and the introduction of a law that allows Egyptian mothers the right to pass their nationality onto their children -- with the exception of children of Palestinian fathers, which the report described as "unconstitutional" and discriminatory. Despite these improvements -- in addition to an unprecedented demonstration protesting against torture in front of the headquarters of the State Security Intelligence in June -- the overall human rights situation as the report illustrated remains deplorable. This despite the formation of the government's National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) more than a year ago. "This means the council's influence [over the government] is limited. The government never responded to any of the council's recommendations," Abu Se'da, who is also an NCHR board member, said.
