The first annual report of the state-backed National Council for Human Rights was a lot tougher on the government than expected. Gihan Shahine looks for significance On 9 June, Nasser Mohamed Hussein was found dead, his body naked and severely swollen, near his village home in Beni Sweif. He had just been released from police custody. Hussein's family claimed that he died while in the hands of the police, who then got rid of his body in an attempt to avoid legal liability. Hussein's is not a lone case. Mohamed Hassan Ismail, 55, died while in custody at Ezbekiya police station. A disabled Mohamed Sayed Nigm, 30, reportedly died after being held in custody for eight days at a State Security Investigation (SSI) office. Nigm had been taken in without an arrest warrant or charges being filed against him. Similarly, Khaled Abdel-Nabi Hassan, 19, died after having allegedly been subjected to torture at a police station in Suez Canal town of Fayed. These are only a few of the cases recorded in the state-backed National Council for Human Rights' (NCHR) first annual report, which received worldwide applause for being "tougher than expected", considering that the council was established and financed by the government. The survey, commentators said, gave "official credence" to widespread claims of torture by Egyptian police and security forces; it also called for an end to Egypt's 24-year-old state of emergency ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections, which are due next September. The council did not base the report's findings on first-hand investigations; instead, as is made clear in its foreword, time constraints forced it to rely on citizens' complaints that had come in to the council over the past year, as well as reports by independent human rights organisations. In some cases, council members said, investigations had confirmed case reports. The council, for instance, had confirmed at least nine cases of death whilst in detention over the past year. According to the report, torture and ill treatment were found to be nearly "a standard practice" during questioning in both Egyptian police stations and the SSI. Suspects, who are sometimes held without charge, are reportedly given electric shocks, hung by their arms or legs from ceilings or doors, splashed with cold water, made to stand naked in the cold for hours, or beaten with sticks, belts, electric cables, whips or rifle butts. The report says that many of those suspects, who sometimes remain in detention for months, may ultimately be proven innocent and released without compensation. Anyone who happens to be on the scene of a crime, the report said, could be arrested and tortured to obtain information, as part of "a typical police investigative practice". In the aftermath of three bomb attacks on tourist resorts in Sinai last October, the report said, some 2,500 people, including the female relatives of potential suspects, were detained and tortured to obtain information. At least 2,000 suspects remain in detention without charges. The report also cites another case of arbitrary detention involving the police arresting numerous members of an escaped convict's family, who were then subjected to torture to obtain information. They included a small girl who had her arm broken in the process. Egypt's agreement with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) -- whereby the latter sends suspected terrorists to other countries for questioning -- also resulted in confessions being obtained after suspects were tortured, the report said. The report also said that thousands of members of Islamist groups have been in prison since the 1990s; some were detained without charges and never released; others remain in custody long after their sentences are complete. A great many members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group have been similarly detained without charges during the government's routine clampdowns on the group, the report said. The council was also critical of poor health conditions in prisons, which it said had resulted in some of the deaths. Forty-year-old Akram Zuheiri, a member of the Brotherhood who died after spending less than a month in detention, is a case in point. The report said those fortunate enough to survive might, however, develop a state of "involuntary urination as a result of receiving electric shocks on [the] male organ." This had happened with another Brotherhood detainee. Prosecuting such cases takes time; in fact, only one case of death while in detention was prosecuted in court over the past year. Meanwhile, the report says the government has largely ignored the council's enquiries about the citizen complaints it has received. The Interior Ministry, which runs the nation's prisons and police, answered only 27 out of 242 requests, and only three out of 75 allegations of torture. Critics said the report itself had shortcomings as well. It did not, for instance, criticise the constitutional loopholes that give the executive branch dominance over the legislative and judicial branches. It also dealt with a number of important issues -- including freedom of the press and civil society, the independence of the judiciary, and freedom of thought and literary and artistic creativity -- in a superficial manner, critics say. Still, although the report does not offer much in the way of new findings, the fact that it was issued by a government-affiliated body makes it even more significant than tougher reports by independent human rights organisations. Its blunt conclusions have lent the council worldwide credibility, despite the parts that praise the ruling National Democratic Party for spearheading reform, or the Interior Ministry for making some minor improvements in prison conditions. The United States welcomed the report as "a positive step in Egypt's political reform process". State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters last Thursday that the US was "encouraged that this organisation, which was created on the instruction of President [Hosni] Mubarak and has been supported by the Egyptian government -- has presented such a frank assessment of Egypt's human rights problems." Casey said the NCHR "cited many of the violations that were contained in the State Department's own annual report, and made a number of recommendations to the Egyptian government." One primary recommendation is the urgent need to abolish the emergency law prior to presidential elections, so that citizens do not feel "alienat[ed]" or "tempt[ed] to stay away from participation in public life". The report also calls for a number of legal measures that would end arbitrary detentions and torture during questioning. It called for improving conditions inside prisons, providing suspects with legal assistance during interrogations, and releasing prisoners who were detained without charges and never released. It would have been disastrous, on the other hand, had the report not been as tough. With the Washington-based Human Rights Watch frequently reporting on torture during questioning and arbitrary detentions in Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt, and the recently released UNDP Arab Human Development report pulling very few punches in its assessments of the region's lack of freedoms, the council would have been "shooting itself in the foot", said council member Hafez Abu Seada, had it not been so blunt. Abu Seada, who is also the secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights told Al-Ahram Weekly that some council members, mainly those close to the government, did not want the report to be critical, but "we convinced them that those violations are already well-known, and that the council would be dead in the water otherwise." Mohamed Zarie, director of the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners, however, found nothing to celebrate in the report except for the fact that "it provides an official apology to human rights groups who have always been accused of being complicit with foreign powers and of tarnishing Egypt's image abroad." The important question, for Zarie, is whether the government would actually respond to the report's demands, or "just put it on the shelf along with the growing pile of stronger independent reports on violations of human rights". In a statement included in the report, the Interior Ministry has already called the torture claims "individual incidents", while dismissing calls for the abolition of the emergency law, arguing that it was necessary to combat terrorism and drug trafficking. The report, on the other hand, said such excuses are invalid since the normal criminal code includes anti- terrorism articles. Zarie is also sceptical about the council being allowed to monitor the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, which means that, "the upcoming report will probably be much weaker". In that case, he said, "the council and the report would prove to be no more than cosmetic steps to respond to external pressures." Abu Seada said copies of the report had already been sent to the president, parliament, and Shura Council, along with the European Union and the United Nations. "The ball is now in the government's court," Abu Seada told the Weekly. "The fact that the report was issued by a council affiliated to the government puts it in a corner: either to respond positively and show true commitment to reform plans, or ignore the report and thus prove that such violations are intentional and part and parcel of the regime."
