CAIRO: NGO the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) on Thursday called for a release order to be issued in favor of a man detained without charge under emergency law powers for over a year to be implemented immediately. Mohamed Farouq Mohamed El-Sayyed was one of a group of 11 detained in April and May 2009 because of their Shia religious beliefs, in a case which has become known as the “Hassan Shehata group” case. The group was interrogated by the Supreme State Security Prosecution office in June 2009 on charges of forming a group “created in order to spread Shia beliefs which harm Islam and sects belonging to the Sunni sect.” The public prosecution office ordered that all 11 detainees be released in October 2009. The interior ministry responded by re-detaining eight of the group. EIPR says that the interior ministry has ignored numerous release orders issued by the supreme emergency state security court in favor of the group, including a fresh detention order issued against El-Sayyed on June 9, 2010 — less than a month after a presidential decree was announced limiting the application of emergency powers to narcotics and terrorism cases. The supreme emergency state security court quashed the detention order issued against El-Sayyed this past Wednesday. Between June 10 and 13, EIPR says in its press statement issued Thursday, El-Sayyed was transferred to the Sixth of October City state security investigations headquarters where he was physically assaulted and insulted. He was then taken to Damanhour Prison on June 14 where he is currently being held with the seven other men detained in this case. EIPR submitted a complaint to the public prosecution office on July 7 accusing officers from the Sixth of October City state security headquarters of illegally detaining and torturing El-Sayyed and of issuing arbitrary detention orders against him. No action has been taken by the public prosecution office in response to the complaint. “What has happened to El-Sayyed and the continuing detention of him and seven other Shia men reveals that the government is continuing to violate the pledges it made to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to put a halt to violations of citizens' right to freedom of religion and belief,” EIPR director Hossam Bahgat said in the statement. “Security bodies continue to detain and torture individuals with different beliefs” without the minimum level of accountability, he added.
