July, 08 2011, 11:27am EDT
Egypt: Cairo Violence Highlights Need to Reform Riot Police
Investigate Violent Response by Central Security Forces; Create Code of Conduct
CAIRO
The clashes in Cairo on June 28 and 29, 2011, between police and protesters in which more than 1,000 people were injured highlight the urgent need to reform security forces, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should promptly formulate an interim code of conduct for policing demonstrations and order a thorough investigation into any improper use of firearms and riot control weapons by the riot police during the protests.
"The video footage of Central Security officers throwing stones back at protesters and firing teargas recklessly is ample evidence of the need for police to follow basic international standards," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "With more demonstrations expected on July 8, the government needs to act quickly to prevent more mayhem and injury."
The Central Security Forces (CSF), Egypt's riot police, has a well-documented history of using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators as well as of shooting unarmed migrants on the Sinai border. The most recent incident was on June 25. A security official who did not give his name told Agence France-Pressethat border police had shot dead four African migrants attempting to cross the border, bringing the total shot dead in 2011 to eight.
Police Violence, Crowd Control Failure on June 28 and 29
The government said on June 29 that it had ordered an investigation into the 16-hour standoff between the CSF riot police and protesters objecting to the government's failure to prosecute former officials. According to the Ministry of Health, the clashes had injured 1,114 people by the afternoon of June 29. nterior Minister Mansour al-Eissawi denied that police had used excessive force against demonstrators, saying that they had used only teargas, but the quasi-official National Council for Human Rights, as well as independent Egyptian human rights organizations, documented the use of rubber bullets and pellet guns.
Police arrested at least 44 people at the scene and brought them all before military prosecutors, who ordered them detained for 15 days pending investigations on charges of assaulting public officials, destruction of public property, and possession of illegal weapons. The ongoing use of military courts to try civilians reflects a disturbing disregard for international standards and due process rights, Human Rights Watch said.
The violence started at the Balloon Theater in Cairo's Agouza neighborhood on June 28, though there are conflicting accounts about what set it off. Activists said that police had attacked the families of protesters killed during the January uprising, but officials later said there was a premeditated attack on the police by armed thugs.
At about 10 p.m. activists started sending out calls online for people to gather at the Interior Ministry on Sheikh Rihan Street in downtown Cairo in solidarity with the families of the victims. The demonstration there spread to surrounding streets over the next 14 hours.
Footage from the Balloon Theater incident posted on YouTube by activists appears to show four police officers, three in riot police uniform and one in regular police uniform, surround and beat a civilian man who had one arm in a sling and was holding up a poster of a victim of police violence during the January uprising. The footage shows the officers dragging the man across the street, beating him until he falls to the ground, and giving him what appear from the image and buzzing sound to be electroshocks with a short black device.
One protester told Human Rights Watch that by the time he arrived at the Interior Ministry at around 11 p.m., hundreds of angry protesters had gathered on the street outside, facing rows of riot police guarding the ministry and that the protesters and police were throwing stones at each other.
Human Rights Watch spoke with 10 witnesses, some of them protesters, who gave consistent accounts of seeing men in civilian clothing armed with sticks, and sometimes with metal rods and stones, standing with the riot police officers and apparently operating under their command.
Video footage taken by Mostafa Bahgat, a video-journalist for the news site Masry al-Youm, shows Central Security officers throwing rocks at protesters for several minutes at a time from the evening of June 28 through the next morning. It also shows the police firing teargas into the crowd at eye-level rather than into the air, at times kneeling on the ground as they fired directly at protesters, or shooting out of their vans.
One witness told Human Rights Watch that he saw a young man hit in the face with a teargas canister at around 4 a.m. on June 29. Another witness told Human Rights Watch that at around 1 a.m., on Mohamed Mahmud Street, he saw a young man with a bleeding wound in his stomach that may have come from a rubber bullet. Police also used pellet guns to disperse the demonstrators, witnesses said.
On June 30, Interior Minister Mansour al-Eissawi told the Egyptian private TV station Tahrir TV, "The Interior Ministry used nothing but teargas, there were no bullets, not even rubber ones."
But a doctor at a makeshift clinic just off Tahrir Square told Human Rights Watch on the morning of June 29 that the injuries he had seen throughout the night included severe breathing difficulties, some knife wounds, and a few cases of wounds caused by rubber bullets as well as second-degree burns caused by teargas canisters fired at close range.
"The interior minister's denial of wrongful police behavior before any official investigation took place is premature and not a good sign of his commitment to change the way security forces operate," Stork said. "The first step should be to ensure a full and impartial investigation of the violence captured on video and to hold all transgressors accountable - police as well as protesters."
Central Security Force Violence at the Border
Since mid-2007 Egypt's border guards, who are part of the CSF, have shot dead at least 93 unarmed migrants as they tried to cross the border into Israel. Human Rights Watch, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, and other organizations have repeatedly criticized this lethal and unjustified use of force. Egyptian officials have said that the border police follow a common warning procedure before directly targeting people who are trying to cross.
However, international standards on the intentional use of lethal force by law enforcement agents say that such force should only be used when strictly necessary to protect life, whether or not there are warning shots. The Egyptian authorities have never explained why lethal force is justified when used against migrants fleeing from the police.
"The policy of shooting unarmed migrants along the Sinai border is one of the most abhorrent practices of the Mubarak regime and should not be occurring in post-Tahrir Egypt," Stork said. "The apparent resumption of this practice shows a blatant disregard for the right to life and is one that the minister can halt immediately with one order."
Egypt's Police Law and Impunity for Violence at Demonstrations
The CSF riot police are responsible for policing demonstrations and public gatherings and have frequently used excessive force against unarmed civilians, Human Rights Watch research has shown. Under former President Hosni Mubarak, the authorities did not investigate the use of excessive force against demonstrators or punish those responsible.
Egypt's Police Law provides overly broad powers to police dispersing demonstrations that are not consistent with international standards, Human Rights Watch said. Article 102 of Egypt's 1971Police Law No. 109 provides that:
[P]olice officers may use necessary force to perform their duties if this is the only means available. The use of firearms is restricted ... to disperse crowds or demonstrations of at least five people if this threatens public security after issuing a warning to demonstrators to disperse. The order to use firearms shall be issued by a commander, who must be obeyed.
Beyond this provision, Egypt has no code of conduct regulating the use of force and firearms by CSF.
The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms stipulate that law enforcement officials "shall, as far as possible, apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force" and may use force "only if other means remain ineffective." When the use of force is unavoidable, law enforcement officials must "exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offence."
"Peaceful demonstrators who plan to gather in Tahrir Square to call for justice for the victims of the uprising and a full transition to democracy need to feel confident that the police will protect them and that any resort to use of force will be responsible and proportionate," Stork said. "The minister of interior needs to announce a strategy on how he plans to reform the riot police."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
South Korean Court Hears First Asian Youth Climate Case
"Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later," said one plaintiff's mother. "But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
Apr 23, 2024
One of South Korea's two highest courts on Tuesday began hearing Asia's first-ever youth-led climate lawsuit, which accuses the country's government of failing to protect citizens from the effects of the worsening, human-caused planetary emergency.
Nineteen members of the advocacy group Youth4ClimateAction filed a constitutional complaint in March 2020 accusing the South Korean government of violating their rights to life, the "pursuit of happiness," a "healthy and pleasant environment," and to "resist against human extinction."
The lawsuit also notes "the inequality between the adult generation who can enjoy the relatively pleasant environment and the youth generation who must face a potential disaster from climate change," as well as the government's obligation to prevent and protect citizens from environmental disasters.
"South Korea's current climate plans are not sufficient to keep the temperature increase within 1.5°C, thus violating the state's obligation to protect fundamental rights," the plaintiffs said in a statement.
South Korea's Constitutional Court began hearing a case that accuses the government of having failed to protect 200 people, including dozens of young environmental activists and children, by not tackling climate change https://t.co/XRIGE23KGMÂ pic.twitter.com/snvqBaGGe9
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 23, 2024
Signatories to the 2015 Paris agreement committed to "holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C."
According to the United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) most recent Emissions Gap Report, the world must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 28% before 2030 to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels and 42% to halt warming at 1.5°C. UNEP said that based on current policies and practices, the world is on track for 2.9°C of warming by the end of the century.
A summary of the lawsuit notes that South Korea is the fifth-largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, and that the government is constitutionally obligated to protect Koreans from the climate emergency.
Instead, the plaintiffs argue, the Korean Parliament "gave the government total discretion to set the GHG reduction target without providing any specific guidelines." Furthermore, they contend that the government's downgraded reduction targets fall "far short of what is necessary to satisfy the temperature rise threshold acknowledged by the global community."
Lee Donghyun, the mother of one of the plaintiffs, toldReuters: "Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later. But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
The South Korean case comes on the heels of a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which found that Switzerland's government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to heed scientists' warnings to swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
The ECHR ruled on the same day that climate cases brought by a former French mayor and a group of Portuguese youth were inadmissible.
Courts in Australia, Brazil, and Peru also have human rights-based climate cases on their dockets.
In the United States, a state judge in Montana ruled last year in favor of 16 young residents who argued that fossil fuel extraction violated their constitutional right to "a clean and healthful environment."
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is trying to derail a historic youth-led climate lawsuit against the U.S. government.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals
"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law," said Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
Apr 23, 2024
The United Nations' human rights chief on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently assailed and destroyed, further imperiling the enclave's barely functioning healthcare system.
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that he was "horrified" by the discovery of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa medical complexes, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reduced to ruins.
More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.
Türk demanded an "independent, effective, and transparent" probe into the killings and mass graves, adding that "given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators."
"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law," he added. "And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime."
"Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price."
The IDF's destructive attacks on Nasser and al-Shifa were part of a broader Israeli assault on Gaza's healthcare system. An analysis released Monday by Save the Children found that the rate of monthly Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October has exceeded that of any other conflict around the world since 2018.
The group estimated that Israel has launched an average of 73 attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza—and at least 435 attacks total since October.
"After six months of unimaginable horror, the healthcare system in Gaza has been brought to its knees," said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children's country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. "Healthcare workers are risking their lives daily to give Palestinian children a chance at survival. The constant attacks on healthcare are simply unjustifiable and must stop. Palestinian children must have unimpeded access to services, including healthcare and education."
Türk also used his statement Tuesday to condemn Israeli forces' killing of women and children in airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah in recent days. The human rights official noted that Gaza doctors rescued a baby from the womb of her mother as the latter succumbed to head injuries from an Israeli strike.
"The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed—this is beyond warfare," said Türk. "Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shameful': UK Conservatives Push Through Plan to Deport Asylum-Seekers to Rwanda
"The U.K. government could literally pay every refugee a £30,000 annual salary for life, and it would be cheaper," said one critic. "We're burning money just to enjoy the cruelty."
Apr 23, 2024
Legal and human rights experts on Tuesday said the British Conservative Party's decision to push through a bill allowing the government to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda—effectively overriding last year's Supreme Court ruling—represented a "desperate low" from lawmakers eager to exploit migrants ahead of elections expected later this year.
"A lot of this is performative cruelty," Daniel Merriman, a lawyer whose clients have included some asylum-seekers whom the Tories tried to deport after it first introduced its plan in 2022, toldNPR. "The elephant in the room is the upcoming election."
After a prolonged debate, the unelected House of Lords cleared the way to pass the Safety of Rwanda bill early Tuesday morning, after dropping several proposed amendments including one that would have required independent verification that the central African country is a safe place to send migrants.
The House of Commons then passed the bill, and King Charles III is expected to formally approve the legislation in the coming days.
The bill requires courts and immigration officials to "conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country" to send asylum-seekers, even though the Supreme Court ruled in November that people deported to the country would face a significant risk of refoulement, or being sent back to the countries where they originally fled persecution or violence.
The Conservative government signed a treaty with Rwanda last December to strengthen protections for asylum-seekers, including a provision that partially bans Rwanda from sending people back to their home countries.
But the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on the U.K. to abandon the plan and instead "take practical measures to address irregular flows of refugees and migrants, based on international cooperation and respect for international human rights law."
"The new legislation marks a further step away from the U.K.'s long tradition of providing refuge to those in need, in breach of the Refugee Convention," said Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. "Protecting refugees requires all countries—not just those neighboring crisis zones—to uphold their obligations. This arrangement seeks to shift responsibility for refugee protection, undermining international cooperation and setting a worrying global precedent."
"The U.K. has a proud history of effective, independent judicial scrutiny," Grandi added. "It can still take the right steps and put in place measures to help address the factors that drive people to leave home, and share responsibility for those in need of protection, with European and other international partners."
Dorothy Guerrero, head of policy and advocacy at Global Justice Now, noted that "disastrous foreign and economic policies of successive governments have contributed to the need for people to seek refuge."
"These same people's lives are continually used as a political football, after years of being scapegoats for bad government decisions," said Guerrero. "Statements from politicians are now even more blatantly devoid of any pretense of care for human rights. We will not stop pushing for a change of course, with safe routes to seek asylum in the U.K. so that people no longer have to risk their lives in the Channel."
"The passing of the Rwanda Bill is a shameful day for the U.K.," she added.
Hours after the legislation was passed, French officials announced that at least five people, including a seven-year-old child, had been killed while attempting to cross the English Channel, bound for the U.K. in an overloaded inflatable boat.
At The New Statesman, associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe wrote Tuesday that the tragedy reveals "the flaws of the Rwanda plan," which proponents say could deter migrants from seeking refuge in Britain.
Proponents of the Rwanda plan will inevitably point to today's disaster as further evidence that strong measures are needed to address the issue of Channel crossings. They will accuse Labour and opposition parties of ignoring the human cost of letting this crisis continue and argue that lives are at stake if the government does not act.
[...]
The reality is that a substantial number of people who pay people traffickers large sums of money to crowd them on to a tiny boat do so because they feel they have no other option. Fleeing war and persecution, they are desperate. And so they are prepared to take desperate measures. Measures that sometimes lead to tragedy, but which are deemed necessary given the hopelessness of their situation.
It is hard to see how the threat to send a tiny fraction of those who arrive (Rwanda has said it will only take 150-200 migrants) changes this calculation.
The Labour Party, which is leading Conservatives in polls ahead of the expected elections, has vowed to scrap the legislation if it wins control of the government later this year, and critics have expressed doubt that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will actually secure deportation flights before Britons vote.
One flight was grounded in June 2022 after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, and on Monday the OHCHR warned aviation authorities that they would risk violating international law if they allow "unlawful removals" of asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
Critics have also pointed to a finding by the National Audit Office that the deportations would cost £1.8 million ($2.2 million) per person.
"The U.K. government could literally pay every refugee a £30,000 annual salary for life, and it would be cheaper than sending them to Rwanda," said David Andress, a history professor at the University of Portsmouth. "We're burning money just to enjoy the cruelty."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular