February, 09 2011, 09:19am EDT
Egypt: Investigate Arrests of Activists, Journalists
Military's Arbitrary Arrests, Beatings Are Trademark of Interior Ministry Repression
CAIRO
The Egyptian government should order military police, army officers, and State Security Investigations officers to cease arresting journalists, activists, and protesters arbitrarily, Human Rights Watch said today. Army officers and military police arbitrarily detained at least 119 people since the army took up positions in Egyptian cities and towns on the night of January 28, 2011, and in at least five cases tortured them. The government needs to ensure the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the illegal detentions and torture and ill-treatment which have occurred, Human Rights Watch said.
In the cases Human Rights Watch has documented, those detained, who have since been released, said that they were held incommunicado, did not have access to a lawyer, and could not inform their families about their detention.
"Arrests by military police of journalists, human rights defenders, and youth activists since January 31 appear intended to intimidate reporting and undermine support for the Tahrir protest," said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "These arrests and reports of abuse in detention are exactly the types of practices that sparked the demonstrations in the first place."
Egyptian army forces deployed on the streets of Egyptian cities and towns late on January 28, after the police withdrew. Since then, military police and army officers arrested or detained at least 97 journalists, activists, and protesters, according to the Front for the Defense of Egyptian Protesters (FDP), a coalition of Egyptian human rights organizations. The group has documented a list of 69 people arrested so far and has confirmed the release of only 29 to date. Most of these arrests have been short-term, lasting under 24 hours; some have lasted as long as two days.
Arrests of Protesters
Since January 31, Human Rights Watch has documented the arbitrary arrest by military police of at least 20 protesters who were leaving or heading to Tahrir Square. Most of these arrests occurred in the vicinity of the square or in other parts of Cairo from where protesters were taking supplies to the square.
One protester told Human Rights Watch that on January 31, he and a friend bought some blankets to take to protesters who were spending the night in the square. They said they put the blankets in their car and were driving through the Boulak area, not far from Tahrir. An informal neighborhood patrol of civilians set up when the police withdrew from the streets of Cairo on January 28, stopped them at 9.30 p.m. and summoned nearby military police when they saw the blankets. The military police arrested the two men and took them to the military camp in Abbasiyya, in Cairo, they said, where they detained them for two days, along with 20 other detainees, who were not detained in connection with the protest. The two said they were not ill-treated but one of them told Human Rights Watch that he saw military officers beating and using electroshocks on at least 12 other detainees on February 1. All 20 were held in the same room and one detainee told Human Rights Watch that when they spoke to each other, they found that the military had not given any of them an official reason for their detention and beyond some initial questioning, did not formally charge them.
In another case, four protesters were arrested apparently because they appeared to be foreign or accompanying a foreigner. On February 4, three Egyptian young men accompanied by a young European woman were walking from Tahrir Square to their home in nearby Garden City, one of them told Human Rights Watch. A neighborhood patrol stopped them, he said, asked for their IDs, refused to believe that they lived in the area, and voiced suspicion of the foreigner in the group. The patrol handed the group over to the military, he said, who detained the four in a room near a military checkpoint on Kasr Aini Street for 12 hours. The military blindfolded them and made them sit on the floor, he said. Another one of the group told Human Rights Watch that there were at least 10 other people detained in the same room and that he saw a military officer kick and hit several of them, although the four were not beaten themselves. The military officers told them that the group had broken the curfew, although they initially did not give this as a reason for their detention.
Torture and Ill-treatment
Human Rights Watch and the FDP have documented five cases in which persons say that military police tortured them in detention. One protester and civil society activist told Human Rights Watch that he was walking to Tahrir Square along Talaat Harb Street at 3:30 p.m. on February 4 when he encountered a gang of pro-Mubarak young men who took him to a police station off Maa'rouf Street, in downtown Cairo. There, he said, the police beat and interrogated him for around an hour about his political affiliations, why he was protesting and who had recruited him. Uniformed and plainclothes military officers then walked him over to a military post next to the Ramses Hilton for further interrogation before releasing him, he said.
When he went back out on to the street another military officer stopped him, checked his bag, and found some notes and activist documents, he told Human Rights Watch. The protester told the soldiers that he had just been interrogated and released, but they surrounded him, pushing and kicking him, he said, and then took him to a building near the Ramses Hilton. He said that they tied his hands behind his back, slapped him, beat him with sticks and rifle butts, kicked him, and threatened to torture him, accusing him of wasting the time of the military with "useless protest tactics" that were "destroying the country." The soldiers interrogated him yet again about his political affiliations, demanding to know which country was "sponsoring" him and the other protesters.
At this point a higher-ranking army officer said they would take him to a hospital, he said, and then two soldiers put him in an ambulance with his hands tied behind his back, continued to slap him and drove him to the Egyptian Museum grounds. He said that a different officer there ordered him to lie on his stomach and kicked him, along with two other soldiers. They threatened to torture him with electro-shocks and by sticking bottles up his anus as they continued to interrogate him. He said there were five others detained with him - an American journalist, an Egyptian photographer, and three Sudanese nationals. He told Human Rights Watch that the interrogation had lasted for around two hours, focusing on leaflets and documents he had collected in Tahrir Square. The military finally released him later in the evening, and called friends to pick him up and take him to a hospital.
Another protester told Human Rights Watch:
At about 2 a.m. on Friday, February 4, as I was going to my friend's apartment, I was stopped by a soldier in his neighborhood. He first asked to check my ID card, and then opened my bag. Inside, he found a political flyer from the protest and my laptop, which had pictures of the protest. Political flyers, manshura, are banned in Egypt. So the soldiers started shouting at me, 'You traitor!' and 'You are the ones who are ruining our country! You are destroying Egypt!' They started beating me up in the street, with their rubber batons and an electric device, shocking me. Then they took me to Abdin Police Station. By the time I arrived at Abdin station, the soldiers and officers there had been informed that a 'spy' was coming, and so when I arrived they gave me a 'welcome beating' that lasted some 30 minutes. Then I was put in a cell and given a blanket and some juice and told to stay quiet until the interrogator came.
When the interrogator came, he took me to a room and told me to undress. Then he started whipping me with an electric cable, and brought out an electric shock machine. He shocked me all over my body, leaving no place untouched. It wasn't a real interrogation; he didn't ask that many questions. He tortured me twice like this on Friday, and one more time on Saturday.
Targeting of Activists and Human Rights Defenders
Military police arrested at least 37 human rights defenders and activists since January 31 and held them from periods ranging from 12 to 48 hours. On the afternoon of February 3, military police, accompanied by a uniformed policeman and plainclothes security officers, raided the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC), a human rights organization, and arrested 28 Egyptian and international human rights researchers, lawyers, and journalists. The HMLC also houses the FDP, which provides legal support to arrested protesters and document the violations against them. The coalition set up emergency telephone numbers ahead of the planned January 25 demonstration so that they could dispatch lawyers when people called in to report that they had been arrested. The HMLC premises were also used for meetings by the April 6 Youth Movement.
Those arrested included Human Rights Watch researcher Daniel Williams, HMLC founder and prominent lawyer Ahmed Seif al-Islam, two researchers from Amnesty International, and two journalists from a French agency. The military detained and interrogated the group at Camp 75, a military base, before releasing the foreigners around midnight on February 4 and the Egyptians on the morning of February 5. The group was detained incommunicado and did not have access to lawyers.
Later on February 3, military police accompanied by a State Security Investigations officer arrested nine young activists who were on their way back from a meeting with opposition figure Mohamed El Baradei, on Faisal Street, in Giza. The nine included Amr Salah, a researcher at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Ahmad Douma, and Shadi Ghazali Harb, all of whom have been previously arrested for peaceful activism. One of the nine told Human Rights Watch that the officers walked the group through the crowded street, held a gun to the head of one of the group, and told the crowd that they were "spies," prompting some in the crowd start hitting them and shouting at them. He said that the officers then held the group in a military van for more than 10 hours and then drove them to military intelligence headquarters for interrogation before releasing them at around 7 pm on February 4.
Targeting Foreign and Egyptian Journalists
Human Rights Watch has compiled a list of 62 Egyptian and international journalists arrested by the military police since February 2, drawing on cases documented directly by Human Rights Watch and by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. Many of these arrests were short-term and all related to their status as journalists; all have since been released.
One Egyptian journalist told Human Rights Watch that at 6 p.m. on February 1, as she was leaving Tahrir Square, she explained to officers at an army checkpoint that she did not have her national ID with her because her wallet had been stolen and that she was a journalist. The army officers arrested her and took her to a room in a building outside the Egyptian Museum for interrogation, she said. They asked her about her involvement in the protest and whether she was connected to Israeli journalists they said they had arrested at the same place, she said. They detained her for 12 hours before releasing her the next morning.
Most of these arrests occurred at points of exit and entrance to Tahrir square, but there are also cases of people arrested from their homes. A group of two journalists and three protesters told Human Rights Watch that at 9:00 p.m. on February 4 military police, accompanied by ministry of interior officers, arrested them at their apartment in Giza and questioned them about their participation in the protests. They said that an officer took them to Haram police station, handcuffed and blindfolded them, and interrogated them for seven hours about their political affiliations and whether they were funded by foreign governments.
The officers detained them in police cells for 13 hours and then moved them to military police custody, traveling in the back of a jeep, they said. They told Human Rights Watch that the soldiers slapped them and hit them with the butts of their rifles while in the car. At one point, one of those arrested told Human Rights Watch that the officer asked all of the soldiers to prepare their rifles (as if preparing to shoot) and told the blindfolded, handcuffed captives to keep their heads down between their legs, or they would be shot.
"Protesters initially greeted the military as their protector from the abuses of the interior ministry," said Stork. "While the military may have promised not to shoot protesters, it must also respect their right to freedom of assembly and their right not to be arbitrarily detained."
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
Rights Groups Urge Biden to Make Delayed Report on Israel's Use of US Arms Public
The report—due Wednesday under the terms of a White House directive—has been indefinitely postponed, according to congressional aides.
May 07, 2024
Before Tuesday's reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law, a coalition of advocacy groups circulated a letter urging the White House to share the document with the public once it's published.
In February, President Joe Biden issued National Security Memorandum (NSM)-20, which requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" receiving U.S. arms "that the recipient country will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law" and then provide Congress with periodic reports "to enable meaningful oversight."
The first report is due by Wednesday. However, four congressional aides
toldPolitico Tuesday that publication would be postponed indefinitely.
"It is not clear if your administration intends to... make this report available to the public," coalition members Amnesty International USA, Defending Rights & Dissent, Freedom of the Press Foundation, National Press Photographers Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, and Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to Biden drafted ahead of Politico's reporting.
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible," the groups added.
Access to the document, the coalition argued, "will allow the press to more fully and accurately report on how elected leaders are making decisions about military aid to foreign countries" and "will help Americans make informed judgments about our leaders' decisions on foreign military aid."
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible."
The letter comes as Israel uses U.S.-supplied arms and ammunition to wage what hundreds of international legal experts and others say is a genocidal war on Gaza. These include 155-millimeter artillery shells and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are ordering strikes they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the U.S. military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
One prominent U.S. military historian called Israel's Gaza onslaught "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," comparing it to the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II, which also killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The letter also comes as the Biden administration reportedly believes that Israel's nascent ground invasion of Rafah does not cross the president's "red line" warning that any "major operation" in the southern city—where more than 1 million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents—would damage U.S.-Israeli relations.
The International Court of Justice found in January that Israel is "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza, where Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockades have left more than 123,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children—dead, injured, or missing since October 7, and hundreds of thousands more suffering full-blown famine.
While the Biden administration has accepted the Israeli government's claims that it is not breaking international law when using American weapons, a number of House Democrats have challenged Israel's assurance, citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by IDF troops in Gaza, and by soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Officials at the United States Agency for International Development also concluded in a confidential April memo to Blinken that Israel is violating NSM-20 by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged Gaza Strip as children there starve to death.
Furthermore, a leaked State Department memo revealed last month that officials at four of the agency's bureaus concluded that Israel's assurances of legal arms use are "neither credible nor reliable."
In addition to NSM-20, federal legislation including the Arms Control Export Act and Leahy Laws also proscribe U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators—although there are many examples of these statutes being ignored for the benefit of key allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other nations.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the U.S. ensures that its military aid doesn't go to human rights abusers," Caitlin Vogus, deputy advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday.
"If the Biden administration can stand behind its decisions about defense assistance, it should have no reason to withhold the report that members of Congress will see from the press and the public," Vogus added.
While Biden has criticized Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and is reportedly holding up two shipments of precision-guided bombs to send a message to Israeli leaders, the president continues to affirm his steadfast support for Israel and has recently approved the transfer of more warplanes, 2,000-pound bombs, and other arms to its key Middle Eastern ally. The administration is also pushing Congress to approve the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic members of Congress asked Blinken to explain what they called "highly unusual" moves by the Biden administration to bypass lawmakers in order to fast-track emergency military aid to Israel. Biden—who recently signed off on $14.3 billion in new armed aid to Israel atop the $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has also come under fire for approving more than 100 weapons sales to Israel since October.
Human rights defenders slammed Biden's reported decision to postpone publication of the report due on Wednesday.
"It's obvious why Biden is burying the NSM-20 report on Israel: He won't hold Israel accountable," Georgetown University adjunct professor Josh Reubner asserted on social media. "There's no way to conclude that Israel hasn't violated assurances it won't use U.S. weapons to break international law or block aid. Of course it's doing both."
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer asked: "Hey, Joe Biden, what are you hidin'?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Overdue But Welcome': Biden Reportedly Holds Back Bombs for Israel
"The White House must leave no stone unturned in its effort to stop the Israeli government's offensive on Rafah—the hundreds of thousands displaced there do not have more time," said the head of Win Without War.
May 07, 2024
Anti-war voices on Tuesday welcomed Politico's reporting that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is delaying "shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel," which on Monday launched a long-awaited invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
"The U.S. has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munitions—both the munitions and kits that convert them to smart weapons—and Small Diameter Bombs," according to Politico, which cited unnamed congressional and industry sources. "While the Biden administration has not formally denied the potential sale, it is essentially taking action through inaction—holding off on approvals and other aspects of the weapons transfer process."
The piece followed Axiosreporting Sunday that Israeli officials said the administration "last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition" and The Wall Street Journal's Monday revelation that it "has held up delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munitions."
"If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step... he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin."
The White House has neither confirmed nor denied Politico's report, which came as Biden again conflated campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza with antisemitism. Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the U.S.-backed offensive in October, Biden has faced mounting pressure to cut off arms to the country and use his influence to end the bloodshed.
"Reports that the Biden administration is delaying the sale of at least two types of bombs to the Israeli government, in reaction to its disastrous conduct of the war in Gaza, are highly welcome. That conduct is again on international display in Rafah this week, where the Israeli military has begun an invasion that, as we at Win Without War have previously warned, could lead to further horrific war crimes," the group's executive director, Sara Haghdoosti, said in a statement Tuesday.
"Now that this news has leaked, senior administration officials must publicly confirm this policy shift," she said. "If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step to condition weapons sales in line with U.S. law and policy and to force changes in Israeli government strategy, he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin from those, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, who are continuing this conflict for their own political benefit. The White House must leave no stone unturned in its effort to stop the Israeli government's offensive on Rafah—the hundreds of thousands displaced there do not have more time."
Over a million Palestinians from across Gaza have crowded into Rafah since October, as Israeli forces have killed at least 34,789 people, wounded another 78,204, and destroyed civilian infrastructure in the strip, which has been under Hamas control for nearly two decades. The International Court of Justice has said Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in the besieged enclave.
While multiple congressional Republicans condemned the Biden administration's supposed move to delay the delivery of the bombs to Israel, critics of the Israeli assault joined Haghdoosti in welcoming the development—which comes on the heels of Congress and the president approving billions more in military aid for Israel.
"Glad to see it. I wish they would've started sending this message thousands of lives ago, as so many urged," Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, said on social media.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the Crisis Group's U.S. program, agreed the move is "good if true" and "an easy step the Biden administration should have taken months ago."
Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, called it an "overdue but welcome development" that "hopefully... signals a pivot to beginning to impose more overt conditionality on U.S. arms transfers."
Politico separately reported Tuesday that according to congressional sources, "the Biden administration's report on whether Israel has violated U.S. and international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza has been delayed indefinitely."
The Israeli War Cabinet—made up of Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Benny Gantz, former chief of the general staff for the Israel Defense Forces—opted to attack Rafah on Monday despite Hamas agreeing to a cease-fire and hostage release deal. Biden previously said that Israel invading the crowded city was a "red line" and is now facing calls to stand by that position.
"The Israeli government has once again proven that it will respect no red lines and that it will go to any lengths to slaughter Palestinians and push them off their land," said Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad.
"The Biden administration can no longer enable these genocidal war crimes or Benjamin Netanyahu's brazen flouting of the United States," Awad added. "We urge the Biden administration to condemn the Israeli government's latest crimes, suspend military funding, and use American leverage to secure an immediate end to the genocide."
Keep ReadingShow Less
NYC Driver Rams Into Anti-Genocide Protest, Hospitalizes One
"Zionists on the streets and in police precincts have declared open season on young people fighting for Palestinian liberation," said one Columbia University student group.
May 07, 2024
One pro-Palestinian protester was hospitalized on Tuesday after a pro-Israel driver "intentionally drove" into a group of picketers outside the home of one of Columbia University's trustees on New York City's Upper East Side, as demonstrations against Israel's bombardment of Gaza continued.
According to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the protesters "were attacked on the crosswalk" by an "Upper East Side Zionist."
CUAD reported that the man drove up to the demonstrators, who have been calling on Columbia to divest from companies that contract with Israel and for the U.S. government to stop supporting the Israel Defense Forces, and asked for a flyer before grabbing a protester by the arm.
He then "circled the block to drive into our peaceful demonstration," striking one person who was "arrested and handcuffed to the bed while in the hospital," said CUAD.
The New York Police Department
toldUSA Today that an argument broke out between the driver and the protesters and that "as the group of roughly 25 demonstrators walked away, a driver hit one person with his Volvo."
CUAD noted that the alleged attack took place as U.S. politicians including President Joe Biden have condemned the campus protest movement, with at least one lawmaker
applauding abusive behavior by anti-Palestinian counter-protesters and New York City Council member Vickie Paladino (R-19) saying last week that the student movement is being led by "monsters, and it's now our job to slay them."
Paladino's "call for vigilante justice was almost fulfilled today," said CUAD.
USA Today also reported that at a separate protest on the Upper West Side near the apartment building of the co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, "a woman punched a demonstrator in the face, seemingly at random."
In Los Angeles last week, city police stood by while a mob of pro-Israel counter-protesters
attacked nonviolent students who had set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 34,789 and on Monday invaded Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced.
On Tuesday, in honor of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance, Biden gave a speech on antisemitism, conflating protests in support of Palestinian rights with the hatred of Jewish people.
CUAD and independent reporter Talia Jane said the driver is a relative of the late Meir Kahane, an American-born Israeli far-right extremist.
The driver's "actions today model a trend in which Zionists weaponize their discomfort over political slogans as an excuse to assault Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Black, brown, and dissident Jewish protesters in violent retaliation for imagined threats," said CUAD. "Just as white supremacists ran over a protester in Charlottesville, Zionists on the streets and in police precincts have declared open season on young people fighting for Palestinian liberation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular