Two opposition MPs who were detained by security forces during anti-war demonstrations have decided to take their case to the heart of the assembly. Gamal Essam El-Din reports The war in Iraq may be over, but its reverberations are still running strong. At the People's Assembly on Saturday, Hamdeen Sabahi, a Nasserist opposition MP and left- leaning journalist, accused the Egyptian Interior Ministry of committing wholesale violations of human rights in its response to massive anti-war demonstrations that took place on the streets of Cairo. Sabahi was one of hundreds of people who were arrested as a result of the demonstrations that took place on the first and second days of the war. He and another MP, Mohamed Farid Hassanein, an independent, were severely beaten by security forces while trying to shield other protestors from the wrath of the anti-riot police. A few days later, they were both arrested on charges of allegedly inciting the public to attack police forces and commit acts of sabotage. In an interview, Hassanein told Al-Ahram Weekly that the arrests received widespread coverage on international satellite television stations and in other media outlets. "Unfortunately, the arrests have exposed some of the repressive and dictatorial policies routinely pursued by Arab regimes against opposition groups." Also speaking to the Weekly, Sabahi said, "the policies of this ministry and the performance of its security forces have defamed Egypt's image on both the regional and international levels. I think the time has come to expose this ministry's infamous record of repressive practices via a serious parliamentary investigation." By submitting a parliamentary interpellation (a question that must be answered by the cabinet minister to whom it is directed) at Interior Minister Habib El-Adli, Sabahi is indeed trying to do just that. The arrests of the two MPs provoked an uproar amongst opposition MPs and human rights organisations, which argued that the two men were arrested in violation of their parliamentary immunity and without the prior permission of the People's Assembly. Justice Minister Farouk Seif El-Nasr told parliament on 24 March that the Interior Ministry had to invoke Article 99 of the constitution, which says "no MPs shall be subject to criminal prosecution without prior permission from the Assembly except in cases where they are caught red-handed." The ministry said it had videotaped evidence of the two MPs allegedly inciting the public to attack police forces and commit acts of sabotage. Both men, however, were released on 30 March in what was widely seen as a reconciliatory move by the government aimed at containing public anger. According to the 49-year-old Sabahi, the ministry's evidence was actually a videotaped interview the MP had given to satellite TV channel Al-Mehwar, "in which I condemned Arab rulers for their cowardice for not helping the Iraqi people, or standing up to America. This interview was shown on a TV in Al-Tahrir Square during the early hours of America's assault on Iraq," Sabahi said. According to the 64-year-old Hassanein, the ministry's evidence against him was a videotape showing him encouraging protesters -- on the night of 20 March -- to demonstrate outside the People's Assembly. The MP said that although he "had tried, from the very start, to ensure that the anti- war demonstrations were being staged peacefully, the Interior Ministry did not want it to be that way." Hassanein's description of the events of 21 March is indeed disturbing. The MP said he joined an anti-war march heading from Al- Azhar mosque to Abdel-Moneim Riad Square, but that security forces had blocked all the streets leading to Tahrir. After two hours of protesting peacefully, Hassanein said he decided to head for the Bar Association "because we were used to going there at the end of every demonstration". While walking towards the association's Ramsis Street headquarters, Hassanein said he was "suddenly pounced on by 10 plain-clothes police agents who attacked me with sticks and truncheons. A few protestors came to rescue me, and a man and his wife managed to get me into their car and drive me to the Bar Association. While I was standing outside the syndicate, I was attacked again, this time by nearly 40 plain-clothes police officers. They dragged me to the sidewalk on the other side of the street and kept beating me. They took my jacket and mobile phone." Right around then, he said, Sabahi and several other journalists arrived onto the scene from the nearby Press Syndicate "to save me from these wolves", said Hassanein. At that point, the violence was redirected towards Sabahi, who was beaten so harshly that he began bleeding profusely. "At last, a group of journalists took us to their headquarters and managed to call an ambulance to take us to hospital," Hassanein said. After his subsequent release from custody, Hassanein went to Munich, Germany, for additional medical treatment. "I had two options while I was in Europe," said Hassanein. "Seek asylum in Germany or resign from the People's Assembly." Instead, he chose a third route: "coming back to Egypt and resuming our struggle against dictatorial practices in parliament and the courts." A videotape of Hassanein's brutal beating at the hands of security forces is included in Sabahi's interpellation. According to Sabahi, the Egyptian public has a right to know the complete details of what happened on 20-21 March. His interpellation directs a list of charges against Interior Minister Habib El- Adli and the ministry's security forces. "I accuse them of committing a series of grave offences in breach of the constitution, the law, human rights covenants and the trust of the Egyptian people in general," Sabahi said. These offences include the harsh beating of citizens who were demonstrating peacefully, setting police dogs loose on the demonstrators, throwing stones at them, and sprayed them with internationally banned chemicals in order to disperse them. Sabahi also said that thousands of citizens were brutally beaten with electric sticks and belts by plain-clothes police officers. "These officers belong to the state security police, which told its forces to attack demonstrators and cause them as much damage as possible," Sabahi said. Sabahi also said hundreds of innocent protesters had been illegally arrested, with trumped-up charges levelled against them. "My colleague Ibrahim El-Sahari [a journalist with Al-Alam Al-Yom] was illegally detained at midnight and harshly beaten in his prison cell with sticks and truncheons. Political activist Kamal Abu 'Eita, who was arrested while sitting at Tahrir Square's Wadi Al-Nil cafe with his wife, was charged with torching a fire truck and vandalising the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)," said Sabahi. Sabahi's view, however, is that in order to discredit the demonstrations and opposition groups in general, security officers were the ones who actually torched the fire truck. "This is a well worn and awful technique we all know Egypt's security forces have always used," he said. He also accused security forces of vandalising opposition party offices on Talaat Harb street as well as the Bar Association and Press Syndicate headquarters on and near Ramses street. According to Sabahi, a parliamentary fact- finding committee must be formed to bring the Interior Ministry's arbitrary application of the Emergency Law under control. "The Interior Ministry must come under strict supervision, especially in a state claiming to respect the rule of the law." Sabahi also said a parliamentary committee on human rights must be established in order to foster a culture of human rights. The MP's interpellation request was approved by the assembly, and according to its speaker, Fathy Sorour, it will be debated in the coming period. Although observers argue that this should take place before the assembly adjourns at the end of June for summer recess, Sabahi himself thinks it will never actually be discussed. He told the Weekly his pessimism was based on the fact that the assembly rarely pursues interpellations against the interior minister. In fact, Sabahi's brings the number of interpellations directed at El-Adli to an unprecedented six -- all of which focus on the repressive measures adopted by the Interior Ministry.
