CAIRO: The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) launched in late June a campaign to combat crimes of torture within Egyptian law and to assert the right for the required amendments to the Constitution and international covenants of human rights and the provisions of the Egyptian judiciary in cases of torture and the emergency law as well as legal protection for crimes of torture in the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure. This came during a workshop held by the organization that was attended by a number of lawyers, parliamentarians and activists. EOHR director, Hafez Abu Saada, confirmed during the workshop the completion of a draft law amending some articles of the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure has been submitted to Parliament, adding that the law had already been submitted by the organization in 2003. Abu Saada told reporters after the workshop that the selection of the period of 18 months for the campaign has been “carefully chosen so that end of the campaign comes before the start of the presidential elections in 2011 and that the issuance of this law and the launch of the campaign come about on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.” Abu Saada added that torture “is systematic, as it became a phenomenon that takes place in Egypt on a daily basis and became systematic and widespread in police stations and the headquarters of State Security Investigations and Egyptian prisons in order to obtain confessions from persons accused or anyone they suspected of committing crimes,” noting that in case one of the accused escapes, “they resort to detaining one of his or her relatives as a hostage, to terrify the runaway accused to force them to surrender.” He stressed the project as presented by the EOHR calls for harsher punishments against perpetrators of crimes of torture and the inadmissibility of the use of clemency and extenuating circumstances of death and of the right of victims to file a criminal lawsuit against the direct perpetrators of the crime of torture. He was, of course, referring to the death of Khaled Said in Alexandria at the hands of a plainclothes police officer. According to government reports, Said died as a result of asphyxiation due to swallowing a bag of drugs. However, most human rights organizations and eyewitnesses have reported the police officer beat the 28-year-old to death after he had posted a video showing police officers in the country taking bribes. The anti-torture campaign is sponsored by the EOHR, including writing of the amendment drafts for articles 126, 129, 280 of the Penal Code in addition to articles 63-232 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. BM
