Human Rights Activists and Lawyers: Torture in Egypt is Beyond the Limits

Lawyers and political activists from all political trends have warned against the consequences of the adoption of the torture policy by the Interior Ministry in dealing with Egyptians, stressing that this is the most dangerous obstacle in the path of democracy in Egypt.
 
This came after the presentation of a film made by the “Ghadeboun Movement” or “Anger Movement” in the Press Syndicate two nights ago, under the motto of “Together until Egypt is free from Torture”.
 
The film starts with presenting incidents that had occurred with Siham Shawada as an example of violations practised against journalists. She was attacked by more than twenty security forces, as they threw her on the stairs of the State Council while she was doing her work and covering the protest of the activists against exporting gas to the Zionist entity on May 4th.The attacks resulted in the breaking of her right leg and further bruises.

 The film continued to present the violations against the members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and what had befallen Fares Barakat on May 17th when Nagi El Gammal (State Security Officer in Behera Governorate) threw him from the fourth floor to the street, which caused a break in the right leg, thigh, shoulder and nose. In addition to this, there were three more bones in the pelvis and a break in three vertebras of the spine and further problems included, complications in the stomach and liver and difficulty in breathing.
 
It also presented the facts of the attack on Hamada Abdellatif, one of the parents of the students of AlGezira School in Alexandria where the State Security Services did not only prevent its student from attending there, but also arrested journalists and parents while  assaulting them. These attacks resulted in a cut in the spinal chord where one of the State Security officers crushed the vertebra of his neck. His condition is still deteriorating.
 
On her part, lawyer and human rights activist, Wafaa El-Masry has condemned the torture which takes place inside the headquarters of the State Security, the Ministry of Interior and Police Stations and stressed that “ there are torture chambers” where  torture materials have become essential.
 
Wafaa also called for the amendment of some articles of the Constitution which gives authorities the right to intervene in appointing the Prosecutor General and others, which she believes indicates the lack of transparency in the security institutions.
 
Mohsen Bahnasy the Legal Aid Association for Human Rights Board Member, pointed out that  torture in Egypt has become systematic and its policy is spread in all Egyptian police stations. Furthermore, the syllabuses studied in police academies makes students aggressive and this is always reflected in their behaviour within these institutions.
 
Bahnasy spoke of the periodic and recurrent facts of torture in Shubra El-Khema Police Station in which citizens are always tortured, either by burning their bodies with cigarettes, electrocuting them and other torturing  methods.
 
Tarek Abul Nasr,  human rights activist from Al-Nadeem Centre, stressed that if Security Services insisted on adopting the same approach of torture with Egyptian citizens, it will result psychologically in destroying the victim”s ambitions, desire to be productive and innovative due to the insult and humiliation he”s experienced, since he is always the weakest link in the torture process as the citizen is the “victim”. The offender is the “Boss” who cannot be prosecuted nor held responsible for any of the brutal crimes he commits against citizens and this is the most dangerous obstacle in the path of democracy in Egypt.