CAIRO: London-based rights group Amnesty International called on Egypt to implement stronger measures against torture practices. The statement was a reaction to Monday's sentencing of two police officers from Giza Governorate to three-year prison terms for torturing and sodomizing microbus driver Emad El-Kabir in January 2006. The organization welcomed the decision, but wanted the government to do more. "The sentencing of the two police officers is a welcomed and positive step, but if it is to be truly significant it must herald more concerted action by the Egyptian authorities to ensure that all torture allegations are thoroughly investigated and that those responsible for torturing and ill-treating detainees are held to account, said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International. The organization reiterates that torture remains a "widespread and systematic phenomenon in Egypt, particularly in the State Security services who hold high powers under Egypt's Emergency Law that has been in practice for the past decades. Amnesty further emphasizes that security forces have been able to carry out torture practices with "virtual impunity and that trials of alleged torturers are usually restricted to cases where the victim died. "Despite evidence that torture is pervasive in Egypt, the Egyptian authorities continue to admit to only occasional and isolated individual cases of human rights abuses, and to emphasize that disciplinary measures are taken against those guilty of such abuses, Smart continued. In the case of El-Kabir, the police officers who carried out the torture recorded the incident with a mobile phone. The footage was later leaked to bloggers who exposed the case to the public by posting the film on their weblogs. Some voices argue that the case of El-Kabir would not have ended up in court if it weren't for the efforts of the country's active bloggers attracting the attention of local as well as international media and rights groups to the case.
