By William Fisher
The first waves of what could become a tsunami of demands for harsh punishments have begun appearing in the two Middle East countries that have successfully overthrown their dictatorial rulers.
In Egypt, the trial of former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, who ran the country’s dreaded security police, began last week at a Cairo criminal court. He is charged with money laundering and profiteering, but it is the savage cruelty of Egypt’s secret police that is motivating the pro-democracy demonstrators who would like to see him executed.
And in Tunisia, which overthrew its long-term ruler, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Amnesty International is charging that the country’s security forces shot at bystanders, protesters who were fleeing and others who posed no threat, in “reckless disregard” for human life during that country’s December-January uprising.
In both countries, it is likely that there will be dozens of high-profile prosecutions of public officials who abused their positions of power to kill or injure citizens or amass personal fortunes. Bringing all of them to trial in an orderly manner that respects their legal rights is bound to present a challenge for interim governments.
As his trial opened, the former Egyptian interior minister denied charges of corruption and money laundering.
'It didn't happen,' said el-Adly, who faces charges of money laundering and profiteering.
Judge Almohammadi Qunsuah adjourned the session to April 2, after the defense asked for time to study the documents of the case.
El-Adly is the first of several former officials to face trial after 18 days of protests forced president Hosni Mubarak to step down on February 11.
Tight security measures were in place around the court where the session was held, with a few snipers seen on top of the building. Only 40 journalists were allowed inside the court, after first being required to leave their mobile phones outside.
Some 150 pro-democracy protesters gathered outside the court, calling for el-Adly and other officials to be held accountable for corruption and wasting the nation's wealth.
Some chanted 'the people want the death sentence for the murderer,' witnesses said.
Protesters have blamed el-Adly, among other officials, for violence against anti-Mubarak protesters that left more than 350 people dead earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the court started reviewing a request by the attorney general Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to freeze the assets of Mubarak and his family.
No decision was made, with the court adjourning the hearing until Tuesday.
Faced with a number of lawsuits targeting Mubarak's wealth, Mahmoud is seeking to freeze the properties, assets, bank accounts and government bonds held by the family of the ousted leader.
Egypt has also slapped a travel ban on Mubarak, his wife and children while allegations of embezzlement are investigated.
Mubarak is believed to have amassed a huge fortune during his nearly 30 years in power. His wealth is estimated at over 40 billion dollars and includes properties in London, New York and Los Angeles.
El-Adly’s difficulties will be compounded by the public display of secret documents snatched from the headquarters of various Security Services buildings. Many have already been seen on Face Book, Twitter and other social networking sites. Many of the documents present a grisly picture of torture, death in detention and mysterious disappearances.
Tunisia’s security forces shot at bystanders, protesters who were fleeing and others who posed no threat in “reckless disregard” for human life during the December-January uprising, Amnesty International disclosed in a report that calls for truth and accountability for the unlawful killings by the new government.
Amnesty released the human rights report at a press conference in the capital city of Tunis – the first time it has ever done so – and called for immediate independent investigations of the unlawful killings and acts of brutality by security forces during the protests that led to the fall of former President Ben Ali.
People detained by the security forces were also systematically beaten or subjected to other ill-treatment, according to the 46-page report, Tunisia in Revolt: State Violence during Anti Government Protests prepared by an Amnesty International fact-finding team in Tunisia during January.
“After the long years of repression under President Ben Ali, the Tunisian authorities must now rein in the security forces and instill a culture of human rights within the police force, in particular,” said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.
“The authorities must make it clear in both law and in practice that nobody is above the law. They must show that those responsible for unlawful killings, excessive force, torture or other abuses are held fully to account.”
Smart said: “The security forces acted with reckless disregard for human life in all too many cases.”
Smart said bringing those responsible for unlawful killings to justice would be the first step toward “turning the page on the long years of abuses under the former president. Such investigations must provide Tunisians with the truth, and the victims with both justice and reparation.”
Ghassan Chniti, 19, a seasonal worker, was fatally shot as he ran away from police in the small city of Thala in central Tunisia, youths who were with him said.
A doctor confirmed he was shot from behind after examining his corpse at Kasserine Hospital.
Chniti was one of five people killed by live ammunition in Thala on January 8 as skirmishes broke out between protesters and police.
His father told Amnesty International: “My son worked and got paid about 150 dinars a month [$96 U.S. dollars] to help out the whole family. He went to participate in the protest…Our income is not enough to feed the family.”
Malek Habbachi, 24, who had recently become engaged, was killed by a single bullet to his neck on the evening of January 12 in the Tadhamoun neighborhood, one of the largest and poorest suburbs of Tunis. He was shot by a sniper, eyewitnesses said.
Riot police wielding batons hit Malek’s brother, Youssri in the head, back and legs as he tried to carry Malek home.
Malek Habbachi’s father said that he had joined the protests to call for better life opportunities: “All Tunisian people refuse to accept their living conditions. Malek was fighting against corruption.”
Malek Habbachi’s sister, who is studying law, told Amnesty International researchers: “We want justice,” a call echoed by most victims’ families.
New incidents of violence took place on February 5 when security forces in the city of Kef opened fire on protesters calling for the resignation of the local police chief whom they accused of abusing power.
Police shot dead two people among protesters who they said were trying to break into the police station.
In January, Amnesty International researchers met with the families of those killed in the unrest, individuals injured during protests, other witnesses, and former detainees, as well as lawyers, human rights defenders, trade unionists and medical professionals. Researchers traveled to Hammamat, Bizerte, Regueb, Thala and Kasserine.
The current caretaker government says that 78 people died during the protests, with a further 100 injured. Tunisian human rights organizations say the real death toll was greater and the U.N. has placed the number at 147, in addition to the 72 people who died in prison in incidents linked to the unrest. Most of the killings are believed to have been committed by the Public Order Brigade.
Amnesty International on January 24 released a report, “Tunisia: Human Rights Agenda for Change,” calling on the Tunisian authorities to make fundamental and lasting reforms and to break with Ben Ali's decades long legacy of abuse.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Egypt: Constitutional Changes, Referendum, Hit “Healthy” Roadblocks
By William Fisher
New amendments to Egypt’s Constitution – and the proposed March 19 referendum in which citizens will approve or reject them – have run into serious objections from a variety of pro-democracy advocates.
Major organizations such as the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) have criticized the specifics of each proposed Constitutional amendment prepared under the Army’s instructions, saying they are “deeply flawed and have frustrated Egyptians’ hope that they would usher in a democratic transition or address the problematic electoral system before parliamentary and presidential elections.”
But much of the criticism has been leveled at the proposed March 19 referendum. Critics charge it is being held too soon. They worry that the current time frame for elections will favor the most organized parties in Egypt, which happen to be the Muslim Brotherhood and former President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
The judicial committee supervising the referendum has not yet announced the general guidelines for the referendum. But it has announced that the only requirements for voting in the referendum will be a national ID card and being eighteen years old, and that anyone can vote at any voting location, further increasing access and ease of participation.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, has suggested that a presidential council be created if the armed forces insist on handing over power within six months. He warned that holding parliamentary elections before the presidential elections, with restrictions on forming political parties still in place, will produce a parliament that does not represent the people.
He said a temporary constitution, the setting up of a committee to put together a new constitution, and holding the presidential elections before parliamentary elections are factors that will help ensure a transition to a democracy based on participation and equal opportunity.
He has has rejected the proposed constitutional amendments, calling instead for a full rewriting of the constitution before elections are held.
Another point of view comes from Egyptian Mohamed Z. Gomaa, a respected international consultant based in Cairo. He told The Public Record that there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion surrounding the Constitution/Referendum issues.
“For the time being, people are looking for a whole new constitution that expresses their aspirations, while the Army only asked for changes of some articles. This is a main and significant difference. People are afraid that restricting the Constitution to few changes may make old Constitution continue, at the end of the day.”
He added, “The responsible committee, with its very respectable head, did a good job. It did changes that will make the Constitution is just temporary. The changes added an article states that the elected parliament must elect/define a large committee to write a whole new Constitution within a specific period. Other changed articles are only making it possible to carry on an unbiased election process.”
Neil Hicks, a senior legal advisor to the US-based Human Rights First, told The Public Record he shares the concerns of many others regarding “the brevity of the transitional period and the likelihood that it could lead to the election of a new parliament dominated by existing structures, primarily the NDP and, to some extent, the Muslim Brotherhood, and that this body would then have enormous weight that it could use to block real reform.”
But, he argues, “There are several ways to extend the transitional period that has been suggested, including the formation of a transitional governing council with civilian participation to dilute military control, or the election of an interim, transitional president to put a democratic stamp on the processes of completely redrafting the Constitution and preparing for parliamentary elections.”
He says he would urge the military to “take seriously the concerns raised by CIHRS and many others about the dangers of a rush to parliamentary elections in a few months and will adopt appropriate steps to lengthen the transition period while also showing willingness to share power and to move unambiguously in the direction of civilian control over the military.”
He adds, “I fully agree with CIHRS that the 1971 Constitution has ‘outlived its usefulness,’ and a commitment to convene a representative, pluralistic constituent assembly to write a new Constitution is therefore a vital demand. Such a rewrite would ensure that any shortfalls in the proposed amendments would be short lived.”
He says “It is very healthy that this kind of very practical, open debate about ways to advance respect for the rule of law and safeguards for human rights is taking place in a context where real progress is a tangible possibility.”
The Constitutional process has been marked by a degree of consultation and participation that is new to post-Mubarak Egypt. For example, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces met with 25 leaders of political parties, in addition to Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie, to discuss the constitutional amendments and mechanisms for impending elections.
The organization’s Arab Reform Bulletin reported that several party leaders requested the council extend the transitional period, as some worried that the elections would be held before less established parties could create a legitimate support structure, limiting those who were able to participate and nominate candidates.
Party leaders stated that elections can not be held before amending the elections law, abolishing the committee for political party affairs, and transforming the state-run media. They said that more time was needed to prepare their respective parties for the polls.
New amendments to Egypt’s Constitution – and the proposed March 19 referendum in which citizens will approve or reject them – have run into serious objections from a variety of pro-democracy advocates.
Major organizations such as the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) have criticized the specifics of each proposed Constitutional amendment prepared under the Army’s instructions, saying they are “deeply flawed and have frustrated Egyptians’ hope that they would usher in a democratic transition or address the problematic electoral system before parliamentary and presidential elections.”
But much of the criticism has been leveled at the proposed March 19 referendum. Critics charge it is being held too soon. They worry that the current time frame for elections will favor the most organized parties in Egypt, which happen to be the Muslim Brotherhood and former President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
The judicial committee supervising the referendum has not yet announced the general guidelines for the referendum. But it has announced that the only requirements for voting in the referendum will be a national ID card and being eighteen years old, and that anyone can vote at any voting location, further increasing access and ease of participation.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, has suggested that a presidential council be created if the armed forces insist on handing over power within six months. He warned that holding parliamentary elections before the presidential elections, with restrictions on forming political parties still in place, will produce a parliament that does not represent the people.
He said a temporary constitution, the setting up of a committee to put together a new constitution, and holding the presidential elections before parliamentary elections are factors that will help ensure a transition to a democracy based on participation and equal opportunity.
He has has rejected the proposed constitutional amendments, calling instead for a full rewriting of the constitution before elections are held.
Another point of view comes from Egyptian Mohamed Z. Gomaa, a respected international consultant based in Cairo. He told The Public Record that there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion surrounding the Constitution/Referendum issues.
“For the time being, people are looking for a whole new constitution that expresses their aspirations, while the Army only asked for changes of some articles. This is a main and significant difference. People are afraid that restricting the Constitution to few changes may make old Constitution continue, at the end of the day.”
He added, “The responsible committee, with its very respectable head, did a good job. It did changes that will make the Constitution is just temporary. The changes added an article states that the elected parliament must elect/define a large committee to write a whole new Constitution within a specific period. Other changed articles are only making it possible to carry on an unbiased election process.”
Neil Hicks, a senior legal advisor to the US-based Human Rights First, told The Public Record he shares the concerns of many others regarding “the brevity of the transitional period and the likelihood that it could lead to the election of a new parliament dominated by existing structures, primarily the NDP and, to some extent, the Muslim Brotherhood, and that this body would then have enormous weight that it could use to block real reform.”
But, he argues, “There are several ways to extend the transitional period that has been suggested, including the formation of a transitional governing council with civilian participation to dilute military control, or the election of an interim, transitional president to put a democratic stamp on the processes of completely redrafting the Constitution and preparing for parliamentary elections.”
He says he would urge the military to “take seriously the concerns raised by CIHRS and many others about the dangers of a rush to parliamentary elections in a few months and will adopt appropriate steps to lengthen the transition period while also showing willingness to share power and to move unambiguously in the direction of civilian control over the military.”
He adds, “I fully agree with CIHRS that the 1971 Constitution has ‘outlived its usefulness,’ and a commitment to convene a representative, pluralistic constituent assembly to write a new Constitution is therefore a vital demand. Such a rewrite would ensure that any shortfalls in the proposed amendments would be short lived.”
He says “It is very healthy that this kind of very practical, open debate about ways to advance respect for the rule of law and safeguards for human rights is taking place in a context where real progress is a tangible possibility.”
The Constitutional process has been marked by a degree of consultation and participation that is new to post-Mubarak Egypt. For example, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces met with 25 leaders of political parties, in addition to Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie, to discuss the constitutional amendments and mechanisms for impending elections.
The organization’s Arab Reform Bulletin reported that several party leaders requested the council extend the transitional period, as some worried that the elections would be held before less established parties could create a legitimate support structure, limiting those who were able to participate and nominate candidates.
Party leaders stated that elections can not be held before amending the elections law, abolishing the committee for political party affairs, and transforming the state-run media. They said that more time was needed to prepare their respective parties for the polls.
Egypt Shocked by Proof of Mubarak’s Legacy
By William Fisher
As Egypt’s new Prime Minister swore in the new members of his Cabinet, the country was still reeling from a series of grisly disclosures involving the military, the dreaded security police, and the country’s Coptic Christian community.
Perhaps they should not have been so outraged, because most of the brutal transgressions of the Mubarak regime have been known to practically everyone over a period of years.
Nevertheless, pro-democracy supporters were outraged by what they saw and heard and demanded that those responsible be held accountable. While most seemed to accept that these experiences are a part of the birth pangs of democracy in the post-Mubarak era, they clamored for accountability and retribution.
What has happened that has been so sensational? Three things.
First, the pro-democracy supporters who attacked numerous buildings of the Egyptian secret police – The State Security Agency – found secret police burning and shredding files, but were able to take away a treasure trove of undamaged files.
Various reliable news sources reported that, inside one of the buildings, large quantities of papers had been found shredded and the Army had moved in to arrest more than 40 security officers for damaging State property. Military officers who were on the scene when the protesters barged into the
State Security headquarters in Cairo and other cities tried to recover the
documents, wrangling some of them from the crowds. A senior prosecutor took possession of others.
But the pro-democracy supporters evidently got away with enough secret documents to create a dilemma for the interim military government: how to respond to now widely-seen spy files.
Some of the content of the documents is salacious and sinister, according to a report by Hannah Allam and Mohannas Sabry of McClatchy Newspapers.
There are several files that back State Security officers' reputation for
torture. In one letter stamped "top secret" in 2008 and made available on
Facebook, a senior official wrote that detainees suffered "injuries" while in
State Security custody. He complained that questioning had to be delayed until the wounds had healed.
Another file, they report, is a tape purportedly involving a Kuwaiti princess and a prominent Egyptian businessman. Another paints Egypt's highest-ranking cleric as a womanizer.
The two reporters said that a woman named Israa Abdel Fattah, 32, a labor organizer and blogger, shared her file with McClatchy and “marveled at the thoroughness of the surveillance.” The file included detailed transcripts of e-mails sent from her Gmail account and phone conversations with her ex-husband. The feeling of violation was indescribable, she said.
"I knew they were watching me, but I never imagined they knew all this
information about me," she said. "My friends tried to take me out to dinner that night. They tried to make me laugh, but I couldn't. I told them I should be alone, so I took my papers and went home."
Amnesty International offers this first-hand chilling account of the carnage and chaos inside one State Security building.
Protesters stormed the State Security headquarters in Nasr City during a demonstration calling for the dismantling of the apparatus, where they collected thousands of classified materials. Documents found included full transcripts of phone calls made by opposition leaders and journalists; details of hacked email accounts and clandestine surveillance efforts; and accounts from inside opposition party meetings, including names of State Security officers planted within them.
Protesters found documents that detailed accounts of cover-ups, corruption, and State Security control over the judiciary. Files on political activists were discovered, with extra detail on Islamists. Protesters also found documents relating to the Alexandria church bombing on New Year's Eve and the 1998 ferry accident.
In the basement of the building, it was reported that there were cells with torture devices. According to documents taken, the state security apparatus had created a plan to get rid of all secret documents following the ouster Hosni Mubarak, to prevent them from being exposed. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued a statement calling for all documents taken to be returned in order to preserve national security and allow the Council to take appropriate actions. However, Egyptians do not seem to be heeding this directive and many documents have already been published online.
Another account was provided by Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a prominent U.S.-based advocacy group.
She said, “Protesters entered the State Security Investigations (SSI) compound in Nasr City, a place they call the “torture center” of Egypt, just before 7 PM. They dragged out as many documents and materials as they could, to protect them from being destroyed. The night before in Alexandria, protesters stormed the state security headquarters on Fara'ana Street, and found "mountains of shredded paper," one activist who entered the building told Human Rights Watch. "By the time we got inside, there was nothing left [intact.] "
Some of the documents found their way onto State Television. Many more of the documents have been shown on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. This has presented the interim military government with a major headache: How to respond to this flood of highly incriminating information.
The second development has arguably been the most serious to date. One of the documents to emerge from the security services’ rummage sale outlines the involvement of State Security in the bombing of a Coptic Christian church on New Year's Day in Alexandria. The bombing killed 21 people and wounded 80, which the McClatchy reporters termed the worst violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority in more than a decade.
The document’s circulation triggered noisy protests Sunday in Cairo by hundreds of Coptic Christians, carrying crosses and Egyptian flags.
McClatchy reported that Copts, especially those in Alexandria, had suspected state involvement in the bombing, noting that a stepped-up security force that was supposed to have protected the church had vanished before the bomb exploded.
According to the document, one of eight said to discuss attacks on churches,
State Security used a jailed Islamist to help organize the plot, including
details on the church's entrances and exits. The document was dated Dec. 2,
2010, and was addressed to the interior minister. It referred to the church
bombing as "Mission No. 77."
The Egypt Tourism Authority estimates that Copts represent about 13% to 15% of the Egyptian population. The have clearly been targets of discrimination for many years.
Gorgette Qilini, a Copt who served in the Egyptian parliament, said Mubarak's information minister ordered television stations to stop inviting her to speak after she suggested on the air that State Security was involved in the explosion.
"Maybe they were involved," Qilini said Monday. "We visited the church after the incident and we didn't believe the official story. There are still many, many questions, but I don't have any documents."
Questions abound. Why, for example, would such a serious plot as the church bombing be outlined in a document that was found so quickly? Why were some documents shredded and others not?
Almost all the documents bear the State Security letterhead and the signatures of senior officers.
The third major shock to reach the Egyptian people came from Amnesty International, world renowned human rights groups that has been on the ground in Egypt since before the uprising.
Amnesty announced that it has received video images taken inside a Cairo morgue showing evidence of torture on scores of bodies of inmates from the Al-Fayoum Prison, one of Egypt’s largest. The organization said the video images it received showed large numbers of inmates apparently killed “in horrific circumstances.”
Amnesty International called for an urgent investigation by Egyptian authorities.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Three videos of dead prisoners from Al-Fayoum Prison were taken in the Zenhoum morgue in Cairo on February 8 by a man who went to the morgue after the family of an inmate told him that the dead body of his brother was there.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Malek Tamer found the name of his brother, Tamer Tawfiq Tamer, an inmate at Al-Fayoum, one of Egypt’s large prisons, on a list of 68 male prisoners listed in the morgue’s register.
He said the bodies were numbered with pieces of paper attached to the front of each and had wounds to the head, mouth and eyes, suggesting they were tortured before their deaths.
Injuries included bullet wounds, burn marks, bruises and missing fingers and toenails, Tamer said.
He was accompanied by a friend, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky, whose brother, Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky, another Al-Fayoum inmate, was among the dead in the morgue.
The pair last saw the two prisoners alive in the morning of January 30, when they were in the custody of military staff with other prisoners on the Al-Fayoum – Cairo highway, south-west of Cairo, after they had left Al-Fayoum prison on January 28.
Military staff told them they could ask about their brothers at the Prison Authority in Cairo, under the Ministry of Interior, within two days, otherwise their place of detention would be announced within 10 days.
A week later, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky went to the Zenhoum morgue after being told by unidentified men in plain clothes that his brother Reda’s corpse was there.
Having discovered Tamer’s name among those of 68 men on the morgue registry, he informed Malek Tamer, who then visited the morgue with his camera.
Tamer Tawfiq Tamer’s death certificate said he had died at Al-Fayoum prison on February 3 from “suspicion of suffocation and an acute blood pressure drop”.
Malek Tamer described his brother’s body as being blue from his head to the lower chest, and said bruises and coagulated blood were clearly visible on his head, nose and eyes.
Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky’s death certificate said he had also died on February 3 but gave no reason for his death, stating only: “Forensically examined and case under study.”
Ibrahim Eldesouky said he saw similar wounds on his brother’s body as well as burn marks.
The Egyptian authorities have not issued medical or forensic examination reports for either prisoner.
Malek Tamer and Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky have yet to receive any response from the office of Cairo’s Public Prosecutor after submitting the video footage and a complaint with support from the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights.
About 21,600 prisoners are reported to have been let out or to have escaped from Egypt’s prisons in unclear circumstances after the Ministry of Interior, responsible for running prisons, quit office on January 28 following that Friday’s ‘Day of Anger’ protests.
More than half of them were re-arrested or later handed themselves in to the authorities.
As Egypt’s new Prime Minister swore in the new members of his Cabinet, the country was still reeling from a series of grisly disclosures involving the military, the dreaded security police, and the country’s Coptic Christian community.
Perhaps they should not have been so outraged, because most of the brutal transgressions of the Mubarak regime have been known to practically everyone over a period of years.
Nevertheless, pro-democracy supporters were outraged by what they saw and heard and demanded that those responsible be held accountable. While most seemed to accept that these experiences are a part of the birth pangs of democracy in the post-Mubarak era, they clamored for accountability and retribution.
What has happened that has been so sensational? Three things.
First, the pro-democracy supporters who attacked numerous buildings of the Egyptian secret police – The State Security Agency – found secret police burning and shredding files, but were able to take away a treasure trove of undamaged files.
Various reliable news sources reported that, inside one of the buildings, large quantities of papers had been found shredded and the Army had moved in to arrest more than 40 security officers for damaging State property. Military officers who were on the scene when the protesters barged into the
State Security headquarters in Cairo and other cities tried to recover the
documents, wrangling some of them from the crowds. A senior prosecutor took possession of others.
But the pro-democracy supporters evidently got away with enough secret documents to create a dilemma for the interim military government: how to respond to now widely-seen spy files.
Some of the content of the documents is salacious and sinister, according to a report by Hannah Allam and Mohannas Sabry of McClatchy Newspapers.
There are several files that back State Security officers' reputation for
torture. In one letter stamped "top secret" in 2008 and made available on
Facebook, a senior official wrote that detainees suffered "injuries" while in
State Security custody. He complained that questioning had to be delayed until the wounds had healed.
Another file, they report, is a tape purportedly involving a Kuwaiti princess and a prominent Egyptian businessman. Another paints Egypt's highest-ranking cleric as a womanizer.
The two reporters said that a woman named Israa Abdel Fattah, 32, a labor organizer and blogger, shared her file with McClatchy and “marveled at the thoroughness of the surveillance.” The file included detailed transcripts of e-mails sent from her Gmail account and phone conversations with her ex-husband. The feeling of violation was indescribable, she said.
"I knew they were watching me, but I never imagined they knew all this
information about me," she said. "My friends tried to take me out to dinner that night. They tried to make me laugh, but I couldn't. I told them I should be alone, so I took my papers and went home."
Amnesty International offers this first-hand chilling account of the carnage and chaos inside one State Security building.
Protesters stormed the State Security headquarters in Nasr City during a demonstration calling for the dismantling of the apparatus, where they collected thousands of classified materials. Documents found included full transcripts of phone calls made by opposition leaders and journalists; details of hacked email accounts and clandestine surveillance efforts; and accounts from inside opposition party meetings, including names of State Security officers planted within them.
Protesters found documents that detailed accounts of cover-ups, corruption, and State Security control over the judiciary. Files on political activists were discovered, with extra detail on Islamists. Protesters also found documents relating to the Alexandria church bombing on New Year's Eve and the 1998 ferry accident.
In the basement of the building, it was reported that there were cells with torture devices. According to documents taken, the state security apparatus had created a plan to get rid of all secret documents following the ouster Hosni Mubarak, to prevent them from being exposed. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued a statement calling for all documents taken to be returned in order to preserve national security and allow the Council to take appropriate actions. However, Egyptians do not seem to be heeding this directive and many documents have already been published online.
Another account was provided by Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a prominent U.S.-based advocacy group.
She said, “Protesters entered the State Security Investigations (SSI) compound in Nasr City, a place they call the “torture center” of Egypt, just before 7 PM. They dragged out as many documents and materials as they could, to protect them from being destroyed. The night before in Alexandria, protesters stormed the state security headquarters on Fara'ana Street, and found "mountains of shredded paper," one activist who entered the building told Human Rights Watch. "By the time we got inside, there was nothing left [intact.] "
Some of the documents found their way onto State Television. Many more of the documents have been shown on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. This has presented the interim military government with a major headache: How to respond to this flood of highly incriminating information.
The second development has arguably been the most serious to date. One of the documents to emerge from the security services’ rummage sale outlines the involvement of State Security in the bombing of a Coptic Christian church on New Year's Day in Alexandria. The bombing killed 21 people and wounded 80, which the McClatchy reporters termed the worst violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority in more than a decade.
The document’s circulation triggered noisy protests Sunday in Cairo by hundreds of Coptic Christians, carrying crosses and Egyptian flags.
McClatchy reported that Copts, especially those in Alexandria, had suspected state involvement in the bombing, noting that a stepped-up security force that was supposed to have protected the church had vanished before the bomb exploded.
According to the document, one of eight said to discuss attacks on churches,
State Security used a jailed Islamist to help organize the plot, including
details on the church's entrances and exits. The document was dated Dec. 2,
2010, and was addressed to the interior minister. It referred to the church
bombing as "Mission No. 77."
The Egypt Tourism Authority estimates that Copts represent about 13% to 15% of the Egyptian population. The have clearly been targets of discrimination for many years.
Gorgette Qilini, a Copt who served in the Egyptian parliament, said Mubarak's information minister ordered television stations to stop inviting her to speak after she suggested on the air that State Security was involved in the explosion.
"Maybe they were involved," Qilini said Monday. "We visited the church after the incident and we didn't believe the official story. There are still many, many questions, but I don't have any documents."
Questions abound. Why, for example, would such a serious plot as the church bombing be outlined in a document that was found so quickly? Why were some documents shredded and others not?
Almost all the documents bear the State Security letterhead and the signatures of senior officers.
The third major shock to reach the Egyptian people came from Amnesty International, world renowned human rights groups that has been on the ground in Egypt since before the uprising.
Amnesty announced that it has received video images taken inside a Cairo morgue showing evidence of torture on scores of bodies of inmates from the Al-Fayoum Prison, one of Egypt’s largest. The organization said the video images it received showed large numbers of inmates apparently killed “in horrific circumstances.”
Amnesty International called for an urgent investigation by Egyptian authorities.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Three videos of dead prisoners from Al-Fayoum Prison were taken in the Zenhoum morgue in Cairo on February 8 by a man who went to the morgue after the family of an inmate told him that the dead body of his brother was there.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Malek Tamer found the name of his brother, Tamer Tawfiq Tamer, an inmate at Al-Fayoum, one of Egypt’s large prisons, on a list of 68 male prisoners listed in the morgue’s register.
He said the bodies were numbered with pieces of paper attached to the front of each and had wounds to the head, mouth and eyes, suggesting they were tortured before their deaths.
Injuries included bullet wounds, burn marks, bruises and missing fingers and toenails, Tamer said.
He was accompanied by a friend, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky, whose brother, Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky, another Al-Fayoum inmate, was among the dead in the morgue.
The pair last saw the two prisoners alive in the morning of January 30, when they were in the custody of military staff with other prisoners on the Al-Fayoum – Cairo highway, south-west of Cairo, after they had left Al-Fayoum prison on January 28.
Military staff told them they could ask about their brothers at the Prison Authority in Cairo, under the Ministry of Interior, within two days, otherwise their place of detention would be announced within 10 days.
A week later, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky went to the Zenhoum morgue after being told by unidentified men in plain clothes that his brother Reda’s corpse was there.
Having discovered Tamer’s name among those of 68 men on the morgue registry, he informed Malek Tamer, who then visited the morgue with his camera.
Tamer Tawfiq Tamer’s death certificate said he had died at Al-Fayoum prison on February 3 from “suspicion of suffocation and an acute blood pressure drop”.
Malek Tamer described his brother’s body as being blue from his head to the lower chest, and said bruises and coagulated blood were clearly visible on his head, nose and eyes.
Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky’s death certificate said he had also died on February 3 but gave no reason for his death, stating only: “Forensically examined and case under study.”
Ibrahim Eldesouky said he saw similar wounds on his brother’s body as well as burn marks.
The Egyptian authorities have not issued medical or forensic examination reports for either prisoner.
Malek Tamer and Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky have yet to receive any response from the office of Cairo’s Public Prosecutor after submitting the video footage and a complaint with support from the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights.
About 21,600 prisoners are reported to have been let out or to have escaped from Egypt’s prisons in unclear circumstances after the Ministry of Interior, responsible for running prisons, quit office on January 28 following that Friday’s ‘Day of Anger’ protests.
More than half of them were re-arrested or later handed themselves in to the authorities.
Even Great Journalism Leaves Questions!
By William Fisher
A lot of the news coming out of Egypt these days is truly professional journalism at its best. And because it is at its best, it is also heart-breaking and maddening.
But regardless of how excellent some of the reporting has undoubtedly been, readers are left with nagging questions that just won’t go away. And maybe that’s as it should be, because it draws us in for more answers.
Last week, two of the best journalists covering the Egypt story filed spine-chilling accounts of former political prisoners and their relatives rampaging through the Ministry of Interior – which ran the security police and made the life and death decisions about torture – looking for the files of their loved ones. Some of those loved ones had been secretly executed. Some had been tortured until they died. Many had been “disappeared” and would probably never be heard from or about again.
Those journalists are Hannah Allam of McClatchy Newspapers and Andrea Bruce of The New York Times.
Here’s how Hannah Allam begins her piece, which is datelined Cairo:
“Trudging through dungeon-like cells and mounds of shredded documents, hundreds of Egyptians on Saturday surged into the Cairo headquarters of the dreaded State Security apparatus for an unprecedented look inside buildings where political prisoners endured horrific torture.”
“Some former prisoners sobbed as they saw their old cells, recalling electric
shocks and severe beatings. Families held passport photos of missing relatives and were desperate to explore the dank chambers for clues to their fates.”
How could you not read on?
Allam continued: “Dismantling State Security, the shadowy and all-powerful intelligence force, was a key demand of protesters who forced the resignation last month of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. When the military-led interim authority failed to dissolve the agency immediately, protesters in Cairo and the port city of Alexandria descended on State Security offices this weekend to seize files they hoped would cement Mubarak's legacy of prisoner abuse and disappearances.
"I thought my brother would be found there," said Leila Mahmoud, 47, who was distraught when she learned the buildings had been evacuated. "He was taken on
April 2, 2005, and we've been looking for him since then. We haven't heard a word from him since. Not a word."
“Security forces and the police routinely torture or ill-treat detainees, particularly during interrogation. In most cases, officials torture detainees to obtain information and coerce confessions, occasionally leading to death in custody."
“For those who jailed at the complex, the memories are haunting,” she says.
"I saw people's nails being ripped out and people hung from the ceiling by their arms or legs," said Adel Reda, 39, trembling as he recounted his nine months inside the complex. "They would throw our food in sand before giving it to us and splash us with cold water day and night. Sometimes it was so dark you couldn't see your hands."
When asked whether he was ever allowed access to an attorney, Reda raised his hands heavenward and replied: "My lawyer was God."
Allam’s piece goes on recounting citizen after citizen telling their stories of loved ones snatched from the beds or their offices or their cars, whisked to this torture factory, in all likelihood disappeared as if they had never lived.
I found the last three paragraphs of Allam’s piece particularly poignant.
“"My brother was detained because he was trying to send food and medicine to Gaza," said Ingy Qutb, 25. "They kept him three months and tortured him and..."
“Her voice broke and tears spilled onto her black veil. "This place must be destroyed," she said softly.
“Egypt’s once-powerful and feared interior minister, Habib el-Adly, pleaded not guilty Saturday to corruption charges in the first of an expected series of speedy, high-profile cases against ministers ousted with former President Hosni Mubarak.”
The New York Times’s Andrea Bruce toggled between the torture factory at the Ministry of the Interior and the trial of Habib al-Adly, Egypt's former interior minister, who appeared in court in New Cairo amid protestors chanting slogans denouncing him.
Bruce wrote, “That did not happen,” Mr. Adly calmly said twice when the judge asked whether he had profited illegally from his office and laundered money; the charges involve a total of about $1.6 million.”
“Dressed in a white prison uniform with a white cap on his head, Mr. Adly stood in the heavy metal cage that serves as the docket in Egyptian courts. It was an extraordinary sight in a country where Mr. Adly, until his Feb. 17 arrest, had controlled all police forces since he became interior minister in 1997.”
“As if to underscore the change, hundreds of protesters in Cairo stormed a
headquarters of the state security police, a hated organization that Mr. Adly
used to run. Protesters also took over or massed outside other security
compounds around the country, with one center in Alexandria going up in flames Friday night,” she wrote.
“At the courthouse, the proceedings were dominated by a group of often unruly lawyers, who had tacked public interest lawsuits onto the government’s case, seeking huge compensation for Interior Ministry victims.”
“This was Egypt’s executioner!” yelled Hussein Abou Eissa, a lawyer, at Judge Al-Mohammadi Qunsua, before hurling similar invective at the accused. The judge, known in Egypt for his independence, barked at the lawyers to remain orderly and quickly postponed the case until April 2.
The charges read by the prosecutor revolve around a piece of land the ministry controlled that it said Mr. Adly had sold to a private contractor working for the ministry, plus money found in his bank account that the government said did not belong there. Defense lawyers asked for more time to study the documents.”
She observed, “Few details seem too small to escape all manner of fly-on-the wall reports. One former minister ordered food delivered from home rather than eat prison swill, newspapers said. At one point, when Mr. Adly opened the tap in his cell and no water came out, a guard said it would start flowing “right now,” although it was still not working an hour later, the semiofficial newspaper Al Akhbar reported.”
“The word ‘now’ used to mean that things would happen within five minutes at the Interior Ministry,” the newspaper reported Mr. Adly yelling at his guards.”
“That’s over now,” one guard retorted and Andrea Bruce faithfully recorded.
Reading the entire stories filed by these two pros, one almost had the feeling of beginning to understand what was happening at ground level those thousands of miles away.
Yet, these stories left a great black hole. It was: Just who were these incredibly cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty young men who were doing the torturing and the killing? Were they incredibly cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty young men when they were hired? Or did they “grow into it,” as they say? If so, how and under whose tutelage?
Most important of all to understand: Were these people just “bad seeds?” Or were they conditioned by their lack of education, their poverty, their absense of opportunity, to be sociopaths? Or was it some other combination of factors?
We learned nothing about who they are. And it seems to me that information is essential if Egypt wants to avoid hiring the same types of jailers next time around.
Those of us who have lived and worked in Egypt accept that many Egyptians have two faces.
There is the face shown to the public, especially the expat or foreign tourist public. This is the face of charm, of impeccable manners, of open-handed hospitality, even among poor Egyptians, who are usually happy to share their food with you although they don’t have enough to feed themselves, and who are honored that you are visiting their home.
I have gone to the University of Cairo to talk to young undergrads about life in America, warts and all. There were, I was told later, half a dozen jihadis in the group. I was astonished when I learned that the young man who invited me to his home to continue the discussion over dinner was one of the hottest firebrand jihadis! He had some of his facts wrong, and I had a few, but we had a spirited and constructive conversation nevertheless. And I had the feeling we were talking to one another, not past one another.
Then, I’m told, there is the dark side. In my mind, the dark side consists of the dead-enders (HT Mr. Rumsfeld) who can not find employment other than employment that involves maiming and killing people, and getting off on the unspeakable sounds of unspeakable pain. As the attributes of these people were explained to me, the words took on an affinity with the vocabulary used to describe the really dangerous American street gangs. In other words, criminals in training.
Were these the people the Ministry of Interior was recruiting? If that’s the case, the Egyptian people need to know more about who they are and how they were motivated –so that Egypt never goes down that road again!
A lot of the news coming out of Egypt these days is truly professional journalism at its best. And because it is at its best, it is also heart-breaking and maddening.
But regardless of how excellent some of the reporting has undoubtedly been, readers are left with nagging questions that just won’t go away. And maybe that’s as it should be, because it draws us in for more answers.
Last week, two of the best journalists covering the Egypt story filed spine-chilling accounts of former political prisoners and their relatives rampaging through the Ministry of Interior – which ran the security police and made the life and death decisions about torture – looking for the files of their loved ones. Some of those loved ones had been secretly executed. Some had been tortured until they died. Many had been “disappeared” and would probably never be heard from or about again.
Those journalists are Hannah Allam of McClatchy Newspapers and Andrea Bruce of The New York Times.
Here’s how Hannah Allam begins her piece, which is datelined Cairo:
“Trudging through dungeon-like cells and mounds of shredded documents, hundreds of Egyptians on Saturday surged into the Cairo headquarters of the dreaded State Security apparatus for an unprecedented look inside buildings where political prisoners endured horrific torture.”
“Some former prisoners sobbed as they saw their old cells, recalling electric
shocks and severe beatings. Families held passport photos of missing relatives and were desperate to explore the dank chambers for clues to their fates.”
How could you not read on?
Allam continued: “Dismantling State Security, the shadowy and all-powerful intelligence force, was a key demand of protesters who forced the resignation last month of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. When the military-led interim authority failed to dissolve the agency immediately, protesters in Cairo and the port city of Alexandria descended on State Security offices this weekend to seize files they hoped would cement Mubarak's legacy of prisoner abuse and disappearances.
"I thought my brother would be found there," said Leila Mahmoud, 47, who was distraught when she learned the buildings had been evacuated. "He was taken on
April 2, 2005, and we've been looking for him since then. We haven't heard a word from him since. Not a word."
“Security forces and the police routinely torture or ill-treat detainees, particularly during interrogation. In most cases, officials torture detainees to obtain information and coerce confessions, occasionally leading to death in custody."
“For those who jailed at the complex, the memories are haunting,” she says.
"I saw people's nails being ripped out and people hung from the ceiling by their arms or legs," said Adel Reda, 39, trembling as he recounted his nine months inside the complex. "They would throw our food in sand before giving it to us and splash us with cold water day and night. Sometimes it was so dark you couldn't see your hands."
When asked whether he was ever allowed access to an attorney, Reda raised his hands heavenward and replied: "My lawyer was God."
Allam’s piece goes on recounting citizen after citizen telling their stories of loved ones snatched from the beds or their offices or their cars, whisked to this torture factory, in all likelihood disappeared as if they had never lived.
I found the last three paragraphs of Allam’s piece particularly poignant.
“"My brother was detained because he was trying to send food and medicine to Gaza," said Ingy Qutb, 25. "They kept him three months and tortured him and..."
“Her voice broke and tears spilled onto her black veil. "This place must be destroyed," she said softly.
“Egypt’s once-powerful and feared interior minister, Habib el-Adly, pleaded not guilty Saturday to corruption charges in the first of an expected series of speedy, high-profile cases against ministers ousted with former President Hosni Mubarak.”
The New York Times’s Andrea Bruce toggled between the torture factory at the Ministry of the Interior and the trial of Habib al-Adly, Egypt's former interior minister, who appeared in court in New Cairo amid protestors chanting slogans denouncing him.
Bruce wrote, “That did not happen,” Mr. Adly calmly said twice when the judge asked whether he had profited illegally from his office and laundered money; the charges involve a total of about $1.6 million.”
“Dressed in a white prison uniform with a white cap on his head, Mr. Adly stood in the heavy metal cage that serves as the docket in Egyptian courts. It was an extraordinary sight in a country where Mr. Adly, until his Feb. 17 arrest, had controlled all police forces since he became interior minister in 1997.”
“As if to underscore the change, hundreds of protesters in Cairo stormed a
headquarters of the state security police, a hated organization that Mr. Adly
used to run. Protesters also took over or massed outside other security
compounds around the country, with one center in Alexandria going up in flames Friday night,” she wrote.
“At the courthouse, the proceedings were dominated by a group of often unruly lawyers, who had tacked public interest lawsuits onto the government’s case, seeking huge compensation for Interior Ministry victims.”
“This was Egypt’s executioner!” yelled Hussein Abou Eissa, a lawyer, at Judge Al-Mohammadi Qunsua, before hurling similar invective at the accused. The judge, known in Egypt for his independence, barked at the lawyers to remain orderly and quickly postponed the case until April 2.
The charges read by the prosecutor revolve around a piece of land the ministry controlled that it said Mr. Adly had sold to a private contractor working for the ministry, plus money found in his bank account that the government said did not belong there. Defense lawyers asked for more time to study the documents.”
She observed, “Few details seem too small to escape all manner of fly-on-the wall reports. One former minister ordered food delivered from home rather than eat prison swill, newspapers said. At one point, when Mr. Adly opened the tap in his cell and no water came out, a guard said it would start flowing “right now,” although it was still not working an hour later, the semiofficial newspaper Al Akhbar reported.”
“The word ‘now’ used to mean that things would happen within five minutes at the Interior Ministry,” the newspaper reported Mr. Adly yelling at his guards.”
“That’s over now,” one guard retorted and Andrea Bruce faithfully recorded.
Reading the entire stories filed by these two pros, one almost had the feeling of beginning to understand what was happening at ground level those thousands of miles away.
Yet, these stories left a great black hole. It was: Just who were these incredibly cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty young men who were doing the torturing and the killing? Were they incredibly cruel, sadistic, bloodthirsty young men when they were hired? Or did they “grow into it,” as they say? If so, how and under whose tutelage?
Most important of all to understand: Were these people just “bad seeds?” Or were they conditioned by their lack of education, their poverty, their absense of opportunity, to be sociopaths? Or was it some other combination of factors?
We learned nothing about who they are. And it seems to me that information is essential if Egypt wants to avoid hiring the same types of jailers next time around.
Those of us who have lived and worked in Egypt accept that many Egyptians have two faces.
There is the face shown to the public, especially the expat or foreign tourist public. This is the face of charm, of impeccable manners, of open-handed hospitality, even among poor Egyptians, who are usually happy to share their food with you although they don’t have enough to feed themselves, and who are honored that you are visiting their home.
I have gone to the University of Cairo to talk to young undergrads about life in America, warts and all. There were, I was told later, half a dozen jihadis in the group. I was astonished when I learned that the young man who invited me to his home to continue the discussion over dinner was one of the hottest firebrand jihadis! He had some of his facts wrong, and I had a few, but we had a spirited and constructive conversation nevertheless. And I had the feeling we were talking to one another, not past one another.
Then, I’m told, there is the dark side. In my mind, the dark side consists of the dead-enders (HT Mr. Rumsfeld) who can not find employment other than employment that involves maiming and killing people, and getting off on the unspeakable sounds of unspeakable pain. As the attributes of these people were explained to me, the words took on an affinity with the vocabulary used to describe the really dangerous American street gangs. In other words, criminals in training.
Were these the people the Ministry of Interior was recruiting? If that’s the case, the Egyptian people need to know more about who they are and how they were motivated –so that Egypt never goes down that road again!
Illinois Ends Death Penalty
By William Fisher
After months of nail-biting, opponents of capital punishment were breathing easier today.
Yesterday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, took the final step in ending the death penalty and replacing it with a sentence of life without parole.
The law also requires that state funds used for the death penalty be transferred to a fund for murder victims’ services and law enforcement.
The ban on capital punishment comes after an eleven-year moratorium on
executions declared by former Republican Governor George Ryan, and makes Illinois the 16th state to repeal the death penalty. It also marks the lowest number of states with the death penalty in more than thirty years.
"The Illinois repeal is an indication of a growing national trend toward alternatives to the death penalty, and an increased focus on murder victims' families and the prevention of crime," said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
"In light of our current economic climate, the public has increasingly recognized that resources used for the death penalty could be diverted to higher budgetary priorities, such as law enforcement and victims’ services."
“This is a turning point,” said Shari Silberstein, Executive Director of Equal Justice USA (EJUSA), a national organization that worked with state partners on the repeal. EJUSA worked on the ground in Illinois as a national partner to the repeal campaign.
“Illinois had a moratorium for ten years, two study commissions, and a series of reforms in an effort to create a death penalty that works,” Silberstein said. “Illinois tried harder than most to create a fair, accurate, and effective death penalty. If they couldn’t get it right, then no state can,” Silberstein concluded.
Many murder victims’ families were among the strongest supporters of the Illinois repeal. In a letter to the Illinois General Assembly, murder victims' families wrote, "A legal system that wasn’t bogged down with committing tremendous resources on capital cases could prosecute and sentence countless other crimes and take dangerous people off the streets before they commit murder. Dollars saved could be put toward counseling for victims of crime or other services we desperately need as we attempt to get on with our lives."
The letter was signed by more than 30 individuals who had loved ones murdered in Illinois.
The high costs of the death penalty were influential in the passage of the repeal. Conservative Republican Senator Dan Duffy of Lake Barrington said, "We have spent over $100 million of taxpayer money defending and prosecuting death row cases. The death penalty does not make our society safer, I believe. It has been an ineffective and expensive use of our scarce resources.”
In the last few months, the death penalty has been under scrutiny in other states as well. Days after the Illinois General Assembly voted for the repeal, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who as a Republican state legislator played an influential role in shaping the state’s current death penalty statute, stated: “I have concluded that it is exceedingly difficult for this statute to be administered in a fair and just way.”
He said Republican Gov. [John] Kasich and the governors after him, I believe, need to consider commuting all of those sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and I think it's time for Ohio to at least entertain the discussion of whether or not we are well served by having a death penalty."
Across the country, use of the death penalty is declining as states are using alternative punishments like life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Death sentences in the United States have dropped by over 60% since the mid-90s. A recent poll conducted by Lake Research Partners showed that 61% of U.S. voters chose various alternative sentences over the death penalty as the punishment for murder. The same poll also listed the death penalty last in a list of priorities for state spending.
Since 1976, Illinois has carried out 12 executions. In the same period, 20 inmates have been exonerated from the state’s death row, the second highest number in the United States. In 2003, three years after the moratorium was imposed, Governor Ryan issued a blanket commutation, reducing the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life and pardoning four inmates.
Since then, Illinois has had two different commissions to study the death penalty and has implemented some reforms, yet continues to face an error-prone and costly system. In the meantime, use of the death penalty has declined sharply in Illinois. In the 1990s, the state averaged over 10 death sentences a year. In 2009 and 2010, the state imposed only one death sentence each year.
Illinois is the fourth state in the last four years to abandon the death penalty.
In 2000, former Gov. George Ryan, a Democrat, declared a moratorium on executions because of a series of deeply flawed trials that ended in the execution of innocent inmates.
Three years later, Ryan commuted 167 death row felons to life terms. At that time he urged the legislature to take a serious look at state-sanctioned death.
Meanwhile, Illinois enacted a number of reforms, including mandatory taping of interviews with homicide suspects. That reform was triggered by widespread stories of torture by Chicago police.
In an editorial, The New York Times noted that “other vital reforms to clean up forensic lab abuses and stage-managed witness identifications were rejected. And for all the official study, caution and reforms of the past decade, the Legislature found the system still riddled with risk and doubt.”
Until yesterday, there were 15 inmates on death row in Illinois and prosecutors were continuing to seek capital punishment. Recently, DNA evidence resulted in the exoneration of two men on death row.
Last fall, Governor Quinn took the position of supporting the moratorium as well as capital punishment if it were “applied carefully and fairly.” He changed his mind based on Illinois’s own experience, which has shown why the death penalty cannot be carried out “carefully and fairly.”
New Mexico and New Jersey voted to abolish the death penalty in 2009 and 2007, respectively. New York’s death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 2004, and the last person was removed from death row in 2007. More states are expected to introduce legislation to repeal the death penalty in 2011, including possibly Connecticut, Kansas and Maryland.
In the U.S., executions in 2010 were down 12 percent from the preceding year. The nation had 46 executions in 2010, down from 52 in 2009. This year's total was less than half of that in 1999.
Texas continues to lead the U.S. but its 17 executions this year represent a 29 percent drop from 2009. Ohio, which executed eight men in 2010, ranks second to Texas in the number of executions.
Behind Ohio, four states - Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Virginia - each had three executions. Only 12 states had any executions.
"Whether it's concerns about the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed, the risks of executing the innocent, unfairness, or other reasons, the nation continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Outside the U.S., many advanced nations – including all those in the European Union – have placed a total ban on capital punishment. China and Iran are far and away the world’s execution leaders.
After months of nail-biting, opponents of capital punishment were breathing easier today.
Yesterday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, took the final step in ending the death penalty and replacing it with a sentence of life without parole.
The law also requires that state funds used for the death penalty be transferred to a fund for murder victims’ services and law enforcement.
The ban on capital punishment comes after an eleven-year moratorium on
executions declared by former Republican Governor George Ryan, and makes Illinois the 16th state to repeal the death penalty. It also marks the lowest number of states with the death penalty in more than thirty years.
"The Illinois repeal is an indication of a growing national trend toward alternatives to the death penalty, and an increased focus on murder victims' families and the prevention of crime," said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
"In light of our current economic climate, the public has increasingly recognized that resources used for the death penalty could be diverted to higher budgetary priorities, such as law enforcement and victims’ services."
“This is a turning point,” said Shari Silberstein, Executive Director of Equal Justice USA (EJUSA), a national organization that worked with state partners on the repeal. EJUSA worked on the ground in Illinois as a national partner to the repeal campaign.
“Illinois had a moratorium for ten years, two study commissions, and a series of reforms in an effort to create a death penalty that works,” Silberstein said. “Illinois tried harder than most to create a fair, accurate, and effective death penalty. If they couldn’t get it right, then no state can,” Silberstein concluded.
Many murder victims’ families were among the strongest supporters of the Illinois repeal. In a letter to the Illinois General Assembly, murder victims' families wrote, "A legal system that wasn’t bogged down with committing tremendous resources on capital cases could prosecute and sentence countless other crimes and take dangerous people off the streets before they commit murder. Dollars saved could be put toward counseling for victims of crime or other services we desperately need as we attempt to get on with our lives."
The letter was signed by more than 30 individuals who had loved ones murdered in Illinois.
The high costs of the death penalty were influential in the passage of the repeal. Conservative Republican Senator Dan Duffy of Lake Barrington said, "We have spent over $100 million of taxpayer money defending and prosecuting death row cases. The death penalty does not make our society safer, I believe. It has been an ineffective and expensive use of our scarce resources.”
In the last few months, the death penalty has been under scrutiny in other states as well. Days after the Illinois General Assembly voted for the repeal, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who as a Republican state legislator played an influential role in shaping the state’s current death penalty statute, stated: “I have concluded that it is exceedingly difficult for this statute to be administered in a fair and just way.”
He said Republican Gov. [John] Kasich and the governors after him, I believe, need to consider commuting all of those sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and I think it's time for Ohio to at least entertain the discussion of whether or not we are well served by having a death penalty."
Across the country, use of the death penalty is declining as states are using alternative punishments like life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Death sentences in the United States have dropped by over 60% since the mid-90s. A recent poll conducted by Lake Research Partners showed that 61% of U.S. voters chose various alternative sentences over the death penalty as the punishment for murder. The same poll also listed the death penalty last in a list of priorities for state spending.
Since 1976, Illinois has carried out 12 executions. In the same period, 20 inmates have been exonerated from the state’s death row, the second highest number in the United States. In 2003, three years after the moratorium was imposed, Governor Ryan issued a blanket commutation, reducing the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life and pardoning four inmates.
Since then, Illinois has had two different commissions to study the death penalty and has implemented some reforms, yet continues to face an error-prone and costly system. In the meantime, use of the death penalty has declined sharply in Illinois. In the 1990s, the state averaged over 10 death sentences a year. In 2009 and 2010, the state imposed only one death sentence each year.
Illinois is the fourth state in the last four years to abandon the death penalty.
In 2000, former Gov. George Ryan, a Democrat, declared a moratorium on executions because of a series of deeply flawed trials that ended in the execution of innocent inmates.
Three years later, Ryan commuted 167 death row felons to life terms. At that time he urged the legislature to take a serious look at state-sanctioned death.
Meanwhile, Illinois enacted a number of reforms, including mandatory taping of interviews with homicide suspects. That reform was triggered by widespread stories of torture by Chicago police.
In an editorial, The New York Times noted that “other vital reforms to clean up forensic lab abuses and stage-managed witness identifications were rejected. And for all the official study, caution and reforms of the past decade, the Legislature found the system still riddled with risk and doubt.”
Until yesterday, there were 15 inmates on death row in Illinois and prosecutors were continuing to seek capital punishment. Recently, DNA evidence resulted in the exoneration of two men on death row.
Last fall, Governor Quinn took the position of supporting the moratorium as well as capital punishment if it were “applied carefully and fairly.” He changed his mind based on Illinois’s own experience, which has shown why the death penalty cannot be carried out “carefully and fairly.”
New Mexico and New Jersey voted to abolish the death penalty in 2009 and 2007, respectively. New York’s death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 2004, and the last person was removed from death row in 2007. More states are expected to introduce legislation to repeal the death penalty in 2011, including possibly Connecticut, Kansas and Maryland.
In the U.S., executions in 2010 were down 12 percent from the preceding year. The nation had 46 executions in 2010, down from 52 in 2009. This year's total was less than half of that in 1999.
Texas continues to lead the U.S. but its 17 executions this year represent a 29 percent drop from 2009. Ohio, which executed eight men in 2010, ranks second to Texas in the number of executions.
Behind Ohio, four states - Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Virginia - each had three executions. Only 12 states had any executions.
"Whether it's concerns about the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed, the risks of executing the innocent, unfairness, or other reasons, the nation continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Outside the U.S., many advanced nations – including all those in the European Union – have placed a total ban on capital punishment. China and Iran are far and away the world’s execution leaders.
Egypt Shocked by Proof of Mubarak’s Legacy
By William Fisher
As Egypt’s new Prime Minister swore in the new members of his Cabinet, the country was still reeling from a series of grisly disclosures involving the military, the dreaded security police, and the country’s Coptic Christian community.
Perhaps they should not have been so outraged, because most of the brutal transgressions of the Mubarak regime have been known to practically everyone over a period of years.
Nevertheless, pro-democracy supporters were outraged by what they saw and heard and demanded that those responsible be held accountable. While most seemed to accept that these experiences are a part of the birth pangs of democracy in the post-Mubarak era, they clamored for accountability and retribution.
What has happened that has been so sensational? Three things.
First, the pro-democracy supporters who attacked numerous buildings of the Egyptian secret police – The State Security Agency – found secret police burning and shredding files, but were able to take away a treasure trove of undamaged files.
Various reliable news sources reported that, inside one of the buildings, large quantities of papers had been found shredded and the Army had moved in to arrest more than 40 security officers for damaging State property. Military officers who were on the scene when the protesters barged into the State Security headquarters in Cairo and other cities tried to recover the documents, wrangling some of them from the crowds. A senior prosecutor took possession of others.
But the pro-democracy supporters evidently got away with enough secret documents to create a dilemma for the interim military government: how to respond to now widely-seen spy files.
Some of the content of the documents is salacious and sinister, according to a report by Hannah Allam and Mohannas Sabry of McClatchy Newspapers.
There are several files that back State Security officers' reputation for
torture. In one letter stamped "top secret" in 2008 and made available on
Facebook, a senior official wrote that detainees suffered "injuries" while in
State Security custody. He complained that questioning had to be delayed until the wounds had healed.
Another file, they report, is a tape purportedly involving a Kuwaiti princess and a prominent Egyptian businessman. Another paints Egypt's highest-ranking cleric as a womanizer.
The two reporters said that a woman named Israa Abdel Fattah, 32, a labor organizer and blogger, shared her file with McClatchy and “marveled at the thoroughness of the surveillance.” The file included detailed transcripts of e-mails sent from her Gmail account and phone conversations with her ex-husband. The feeling of violation was indescribable, she said.
"I knew they were watching me, but I never imagined they knew all this
information about me," she said. "My friends tried to take me out to dinner that night. They tried to make me laugh, but I couldn't. I told them I should be alone, so I took my papers and went home."
Amnesty International offers this first-hand chilling account of the carnage and chaos inside one State Security building.
Protesters stormed the State Security headquarters in Nasr City during a demonstration calling for the dismantling of the apparatus, where they collected thousands of classified materials. Documents found included full transcripts of phone calls made by opposition leaders and journalists; details of hacked email accounts and clandestine surveillance efforts; and accounts from inside opposition party meetings, including names of State Security officers planted within them.
Protesters found documents that detailed accounts of cover-ups, corruption, and State Security control over the judiciary. Files on political activists were discovered, with extra detail on Islamists. Protesters also found documents relating to the Alexandria church bombing on New Year's Eve and the 1998 ferry accident.
In the basement of the building, it was reported that there were cells with torture devices. According to documents taken, the state security apparatus had created a plan to get rid of all secret documents following the ouster Hosni Mubarak, to prevent them from being exposed. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued a statement calling for all documents taken to be returned in order to preserve national security and allow the Council to take appropriate actions. However, Egyptians do not seem to be heeding this directive and many documents have already been published online.
Another account was provided by Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a prominent U.S.-based advocacy group.
She said, “Protesters entered the State Security Investigations (SSI) compound in Nasr City, a place they call the “torture center” of Egypt, just before 7 PM. They dragged out as many documents and materials as they could, to protect them from being destroyed. The night before in Alexandria, protesters stormed the state security headquarters on Fara'ana Street, and found "mountains of shredded paper," one activist who entered the building told Human Rights Watch. "By the time we got inside, there was nothing left [intact.] "
Some of the documents found their way onto State Television. Many more of the documents have been shown on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. This has presented the interim military government with a major headache: How to respond to this flood of highly incriminating information.
The second development has arguably been the most serious to date. One of the documents to emerge from the security services’ rummage sale outlines the involvement of State Security in the bombing of a Coptic Christian church on New Year's Day in Alexandria. The bombing killed 21 people and wounded 80, which the McClatchy reporters termed the worst violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority in more than a decade.
The document’s circulation triggered noisy protests Sunday in Cairo by hundreds of Coptic Christians, carrying crosses and Egyptian flags.
McClatchy reported that Copts, especially those in Alexandria, had suspected state involvement in the bombing, noting that a stepped-up security force that was supposed to have protected the church had vanished before the bomb exploded.
According to the document, one of eight said to discuss attacks on churches,
State Security used a jailed Islamist to help organize the plot, including
details on the church's entrances and exits. The document was dated Dec. 2,
2010, and was addressed to the interior minister. It referred to the church
bombing as "Mission No. 77."
The Egypt Tourism Authority estimates that Copts represent about 13% to 15% of the Egyptian population. The have clearly been targets of discrimination for many years.
Gorgette Qilini, a Copt who served in the Egyptian parliament, said Mubarak's information minister ordered television stations to stop inviting her to speak after she suggested on the air that State Security was involved in the explosion.
"Maybe they were involved," Qilini said Monday. "We visited the church after the incident and we didn't believe the official story. There are still many, many questions, but I don't have any documents."
Questions abound. Why, for example, would such a serious plot as the church bombing be outlined in a document that was found so quickly? Why were some documents shredded and others not?
Almost all the documents bear the State Security letterhead and the signatures of senior officers.
The third major shock to reach the Egyptian people came from Amnesty International , world renowned human rights groups that has been on the ground in Egypt since before the uprising.
Amnesty announced that it has received video images taken inside a Cairo morgue showing evidence of torture on scores of bodies of inmates from the Al-Fayoum Prison, one of Egypt’s largest. The organization said the video images it received showed large numbers of inmates apparently killed “in horrific circumstances.”
Amnesty International called for an urgent investigation by Egyptian authorities.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Three videos of dead prisoners from Al-Fayoum Prison were taken in the Zenhoum morgue in Cairo on February 8 by a man who went to the morgue after the family of an inmate told him that the dead body of his brother was there.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Malek Tamer found the name of his brother, Tamer Tawfiq Tamer, an inmate at Al-Fayoum, one of Egypt’s large prisons, on a list of 68 male prisoners listed in the morgue’s register.
He said the bodies were numbered with pieces of paper attached to the front of each and had wounds to the head, mouth and eyes, suggesting they were tortured before their deaths.
Injuries included bullet wounds, burn marks, bruises and missing fingers and toenails, Tamer said.
He was accompanied by a friend, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky, whose brother, Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky, another Al-Fayoum inmate, was among the dead in the morgue.
The pair last saw the two prisoners alive in the morning of January 30, when they were in the custody of military staff with other prisoners on the Al-Fayoum – Cairo highway, south-west of Cairo, after they had left Al-Fayoum prison on January 28.
Military staff told them they could ask about their brothers at the Prison Authority in Cairo, under the Ministry of Interior, within two days, otherwise their place of detention would be announced within 10 days.
A week later, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky went to the Zenhoum morgue after being told by unidentified men in plain clothes that his brother Reda’s corpse was there.
Having discovered Tamer’s name among those of 68 men on the morgue registry, he informed Malek Tamer, who then visited the morgue with his camera.
Tamer Tawfiq Tamer’s death certificate said he had died at Al-Fayoum prison on February 3 from “suspicion of suffocation and an acute blood pressure drop”.
Malek Tamer described his brother’s body as being blue from his head to the lower chest, and said bruises and coagulated blood were clearly visible on his head, nose and eyes.
Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky’s death certificate said he had also died on February 3 but gave no reason for his death, stating only: “Forensically examined and case under study.”
Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky said he saw similar wounds on his brother’s body as well as burn marks.
The Egyptian authorities have not issued medical or forensic examination reports for either prisoner.
Malek Tamer and Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky have yet to receive any response from the office of Cairo’s Public Prosecutor after submitting the video footage and a complaint with support from the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights.
About 21,600 prisoners are reported to have been let out or to have escaped from Egypt’s prisons in unclear circumstances after the Ministry of Interior, responsible for running prisons, quit office on January 28 following that Friday’s ‘Day of Anger’ protests.
More than half of them were re-arrested or later handed themselves in to the authorities.
As Egypt’s new Prime Minister swore in the new members of his Cabinet, the country was still reeling from a series of grisly disclosures involving the military, the dreaded security police, and the country’s Coptic Christian community.
Perhaps they should not have been so outraged, because most of the brutal transgressions of the Mubarak regime have been known to practically everyone over a period of years.
Nevertheless, pro-democracy supporters were outraged by what they saw and heard and demanded that those responsible be held accountable. While most seemed to accept that these experiences are a part of the birth pangs of democracy in the post-Mubarak era, they clamored for accountability and retribution.
What has happened that has been so sensational? Three things.
First, the pro-democracy supporters who attacked numerous buildings of the Egyptian secret police – The State Security Agency – found secret police burning and shredding files, but were able to take away a treasure trove of undamaged files.
Various reliable news sources reported that, inside one of the buildings, large quantities of papers had been found shredded and the Army had moved in to arrest more than 40 security officers for damaging State property. Military officers who were on the scene when the protesters barged into the State Security headquarters in Cairo and other cities tried to recover the documents, wrangling some of them from the crowds. A senior prosecutor took possession of others.
But the pro-democracy supporters evidently got away with enough secret documents to create a dilemma for the interim military government: how to respond to now widely-seen spy files.
Some of the content of the documents is salacious and sinister, according to a report by Hannah Allam and Mohannas Sabry of McClatchy Newspapers.
There are several files that back State Security officers' reputation for
torture. In one letter stamped "top secret" in 2008 and made available on
Facebook, a senior official wrote that detainees suffered "injuries" while in
State Security custody. He complained that questioning had to be delayed until the wounds had healed.
Another file, they report, is a tape purportedly involving a Kuwaiti princess and a prominent Egyptian businessman. Another paints Egypt's highest-ranking cleric as a womanizer.
The two reporters said that a woman named Israa Abdel Fattah, 32, a labor organizer and blogger, shared her file with McClatchy and “marveled at the thoroughness of the surveillance.” The file included detailed transcripts of e-mails sent from her Gmail account and phone conversations with her ex-husband. The feeling of violation was indescribable, she said.
"I knew they were watching me, but I never imagined they knew all this
information about me," she said. "My friends tried to take me out to dinner that night. They tried to make me laugh, but I couldn't. I told them I should be alone, so I took my papers and went home."
Amnesty International offers this first-hand chilling account of the carnage and chaos inside one State Security building.
Protesters stormed the State Security headquarters in Nasr City during a demonstration calling for the dismantling of the apparatus, where they collected thousands of classified materials. Documents found included full transcripts of phone calls made by opposition leaders and journalists; details of hacked email accounts and clandestine surveillance efforts; and accounts from inside opposition party meetings, including names of State Security officers planted within them.
Protesters found documents that detailed accounts of cover-ups, corruption, and State Security control over the judiciary. Files on political activists were discovered, with extra detail on Islamists. Protesters also found documents relating to the Alexandria church bombing on New Year's Eve and the 1998 ferry accident.
In the basement of the building, it was reported that there were cells with torture devices. According to documents taken, the state security apparatus had created a plan to get rid of all secret documents following the ouster Hosni Mubarak, to prevent them from being exposed. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued a statement calling for all documents taken to be returned in order to preserve national security and allow the Council to take appropriate actions. However, Egyptians do not seem to be heeding this directive and many documents have already been published online.
Another account was provided by Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a prominent U.S.-based advocacy group.
She said, “Protesters entered the State Security Investigations (SSI) compound in Nasr City, a place they call the “torture center” of Egypt, just before 7 PM. They dragged out as many documents and materials as they could, to protect them from being destroyed. The night before in Alexandria, protesters stormed the state security headquarters on Fara'ana Street, and found "mountains of shredded paper," one activist who entered the building told Human Rights Watch. "By the time we got inside, there was nothing left [intact.] "
Some of the documents found their way onto State Television. Many more of the documents have been shown on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. This has presented the interim military government with a major headache: How to respond to this flood of highly incriminating information.
The second development has arguably been the most serious to date. One of the documents to emerge from the security services’ rummage sale outlines the involvement of State Security in the bombing of a Coptic Christian church on New Year's Day in Alexandria. The bombing killed 21 people and wounded 80, which the McClatchy reporters termed the worst violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority in more than a decade.
The document’s circulation triggered noisy protests Sunday in Cairo by hundreds of Coptic Christians, carrying crosses and Egyptian flags.
McClatchy reported that Copts, especially those in Alexandria, had suspected state involvement in the bombing, noting that a stepped-up security force that was supposed to have protected the church had vanished before the bomb exploded.
According to the document, one of eight said to discuss attacks on churches,
State Security used a jailed Islamist to help organize the plot, including
details on the church's entrances and exits. The document was dated Dec. 2,
2010, and was addressed to the interior minister. It referred to the church
bombing as "Mission No. 77."
The Egypt Tourism Authority estimates that Copts represent about 13% to 15% of the Egyptian population. The have clearly been targets of discrimination for many years.
Gorgette Qilini, a Copt who served in the Egyptian parliament, said Mubarak's information minister ordered television stations to stop inviting her to speak after she suggested on the air that State Security was involved in the explosion.
"Maybe they were involved," Qilini said Monday. "We visited the church after the incident and we didn't believe the official story. There are still many, many questions, but I don't have any documents."
Questions abound. Why, for example, would such a serious plot as the church bombing be outlined in a document that was found so quickly? Why were some documents shredded and others not?
Almost all the documents bear the State Security letterhead and the signatures of senior officers.
The third major shock to reach the Egyptian people came from Amnesty International , world renowned human rights groups that has been on the ground in Egypt since before the uprising.
Amnesty announced that it has received video images taken inside a Cairo morgue showing evidence of torture on scores of bodies of inmates from the Al-Fayoum Prison, one of Egypt’s largest. The organization said the video images it received showed large numbers of inmates apparently killed “in horrific circumstances.”
Amnesty International called for an urgent investigation by Egyptian authorities.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Three videos of dead prisoners from Al-Fayoum Prison were taken in the Zenhoum morgue in Cairo on February 8 by a man who went to the morgue after the family of an inmate told him that the dead body of his brother was there.
“These are distressing images that show a large number of inmates who appear to have been killed in horrific circumstances,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The Egyptian authorities have a responsibility of care for all inmates of their prisons and must immediately investigate how these prisoners met their deaths and bring to justice anyone found responsible for carrying out unlawful killings, torture or other ill-treatment.”
Malek Tamer found the name of his brother, Tamer Tawfiq Tamer, an inmate at Al-Fayoum, one of Egypt’s large prisons, on a list of 68 male prisoners listed in the morgue’s register.
He said the bodies were numbered with pieces of paper attached to the front of each and had wounds to the head, mouth and eyes, suggesting they were tortured before their deaths.
Injuries included bullet wounds, burn marks, bruises and missing fingers and toenails, Tamer said.
He was accompanied by a friend, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky, whose brother, Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky, another Al-Fayoum inmate, was among the dead in the morgue.
The pair last saw the two prisoners alive in the morning of January 30, when they were in the custody of military staff with other prisoners on the Al-Fayoum – Cairo highway, south-west of Cairo, after they had left Al-Fayoum prison on January 28.
Military staff told them they could ask about their brothers at the Prison Authority in Cairo, under the Ministry of Interior, within two days, otherwise their place of detention would be announced within 10 days.
A week later, Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky went to the Zenhoum morgue after being told by unidentified men in plain clothes that his brother Reda’s corpse was there.
Having discovered Tamer’s name among those of 68 men on the morgue registry, he informed Malek Tamer, who then visited the morgue with his camera.
Tamer Tawfiq Tamer’s death certificate said he had died at Al-Fayoum prison on February 3 from “suspicion of suffocation and an acute blood pressure drop”.
Malek Tamer described his brother’s body as being blue from his head to the lower chest, and said bruises and coagulated blood were clearly visible on his head, nose and eyes.
Reda Ibrahim Eldesouky’s death certificate said he had also died on February 3 but gave no reason for his death, stating only: “Forensically examined and case under study.”
Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky said he saw similar wounds on his brother’s body as well as burn marks.
The Egyptian authorities have not issued medical or forensic examination reports for either prisoner.
Malek Tamer and Mohamed Ibrahim Eldesouky have yet to receive any response from the office of Cairo’s Public Prosecutor after submitting the video footage and a complaint with support from the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights.
About 21,600 prisoners are reported to have been let out or to have escaped from Egypt’s prisons in unclear circumstances after the Ministry of Interior, responsible for running prisons, quit office on January 28 following that Friday’s ‘Day of Anger’ protests.
More than half of them were re-arrested or later handed themselves in to the authorities.
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