EGYPT: Human rights situation in Egypt strongly criticised by human rights watchdog Amnesty International

The human rights watchdog Amnesty International released a report in Cairo on Wednesday (April 11) strongly criticising the human rights situation in Egypt, which it said would be worsened by controversial amendments to the constitution recently pushed through by the government. The report, entitled "Systematic abuses in the name of security" accuses Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government of using the threat of terrorism to restrict human rights and maintain its hold on power. A delegation from Amnesty International held a news conference at the Journalists' Syndicate in Cairo at which it said the Egyptian government was responsible for a pattern of systemic abuse and said the recent constitutional amendments have weakened legal safeguards against torture and entrenched controversial emergency powers. The amendments enshrine in the constitution the same restrictions on public freedoms which the government has imposed by emergency law since President Hosni Mubarak took office in 1981. The constitutional changes also remove the requirement for obtaining a court order for the arrest of individuals or the monitoring of communications if the stated purpose of such action is combating terrorism. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's Deputy Director for the Middle East, said the group felt it was important to come to Egypt at a time when the government is cracking down on its opponents. "We felt also that it was important to be in Cairo at a time where we observe a crackdown on peaceful opposition and on free speech in Egypt," she said. Amnesty's report accuses the government of carrying out widespread torture and unfair trials using emergency and military courts as part of its anti-terrorism campaign over the last 40 years, particularly through the use of the emergency law. The report says that the more prevalent torture methods include electric shocks, rape, suspension in painful positions, beatings, threats of death, sexual abuse and attacks on relatives. It also says that that 18,000 Egyptian are being held without charge or trial. During Wednesday's news conference there was also a surprise appearance by an Egyptian cleric who was kidnapped by the CIA and deported to Egypt where he says he was tortured. The cleric, Osama Mustafa Hassan, who is known as Abu Omar, was released by Egyptian authorities in February. At Wednesday's news conference he did not give interviews, saying he had come only to speak with representatives of Amnesty International. Abu Omar has recently expressed fear of being arrested and tortured again if a government imposed travel ban against him is not lifted. The Amnesty report criticises the practice of extraordinary renditions to Egypt, saying they constitute a clear breach of international law as they place the individual rendered at risk of torture. Curt Goering, Amnesty's Deputy Director, said that by condoning torture in its "Global War on Terrorism", the United States had compromised its right to criticise countries like Egypt. "The United States has committed a human rights scandal and has thus forfeited its ability to credibly criticise the performance in human rights terms of other governments, including the Egyptian government," he said. " So the US reaction to the constitutional changes has been mixed. On the one hand a Pentagon spokesperson has said this is an internal matter, exactly what the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had said. On the other hand there were some other statements which appeared to indicate some concerns... but I think the most important thing that the US could do is to clean up its own act in order to be able to credibly influence countries abroad," he added. The report also calls on the Egyptian government to repeal emergency legislation that allowed for human rights abuses, such as trials before military courts, and to ensure the prompt and independent investigation of all torture allegations. It also calls for an end to administrative, incommunicado and secret detention, and calls on the government to reveal the names of people rendered to Egypt from other countries. Said Habbadi, an Amnesty researcher on the Middle East and North Africa, said that the new changes to the constitution would cause the continuation of human rights violations to continue in Egypt. "And the message we are sending to the authorities today is that these abuses should not be entrenched in the new anti-terrorism legislation. And if the safeguards, the constitutional safeguards have been removed without any proper judicial supervision, then we'll be coming back in ten years time, twenty years time, again talking about the same violations with probably," he said. The Amnesty International delegation made it clear that they had met with government officials on numerous occasions to express their concerns, and had included their responses in the report.

ITN Source | April 12, 2007

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