MB Bloc Calls for Activating Society’s Role to Stop Torture

The Muslim Brotherhood”s (MB ) parliamentary bloc in the People”s Assembly demanded Speaker Dr. Fathi Sorour to task the Human Rights Committee with holding meetings to survey and discuss the violations committed by the police services against Egyptian people, describing these human rights violations  as nearly daily and that they threatens lives and dignity of the Egyptians .

The MP who submitted the request, Hussein Ibrahim, the deputy chairman of the MB bloc, pointed out that the bloc members have repeatedly submitted many requests during the last six years to discuss this serious issue and they submitted dozens of urgent interpellations and written questions regarding these violations and they were referred to the authorized committees .

He added that during every incident in which they submit a request or interpellation, a debate erupts between the MPs and the Assistant Interior Minister, in which the former insist on their accusations, while the latter insists on denying these accusations, consequently reaching nor result. The Muslim Brotherhood MPs demanded necessarily subpoenaing delegates from the Ministry of Interior and delegates of human rights centers and the National Council for Human Rights and every one concerned with or related this issue including citizens and organizations to raise this issue. Hussein Ibrahim stressed that it is so urgent and very serious, specially while the reported violations are doubling.

Hussein Ibrahim told Ikhwanweb all sections of the society are mainly burdened with the responsibility for stopping the farce of continuous torturing cases committed inside police stations. Therefore, the MB bloc demanded Dr. Fathi Sorour to ask the Human Rights Committee to hold a meeting to survey and discuss this issue and to call Human rights organizations and the National Council for Human Rights and invite citizens who faced such violations and document these violations in order to initiate a confrontation between the police elements and the sections of the society that includes citizens torture cases and what the institutions have documented because torture has become a systematic phenomenon.
He added that figures show that 180 died inside police stations last year. This means that one died every two days. 
 
Hussein Ibrahim said that Dr. Boutros Ghali, the chairman of the National Council for Human Rights, opened on Monday a workshop entitled ” Towards an anti-torture strategy” aiming to lay down a policy to confront torture in Egypt, and finding strategies and means for fighting this phenomenon. The workshop- that includes a number of figures concerned with the issue of torturing- discusses with key issues around he psychological and social fallouts of torture, incommunicado detention and the judicial inspection and the legal framework for fighting torturing.
Dr. Boutros Ghali said, in press statements held on Sunday, that the workshop will include a selected group of anti-torture activists- because the council wants this workshop to reflect all views of this concerned with this issue, including from the Interior Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the civil society and the academic community in addition some international organizations like the Red Cross.

Hussein Ibrahim demanded all sections and institutions of the society activate the recommendations issued by these workshops, adding that the workshops are very important but they will have no impact unless the society helps in implementing their recommendations.
For his part, Hafez Abu Seada, the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, called necessarily introducing amendments in the policemen training programs, specially those related to mechanisms of the criminal research and canceling the emergency law that gives wide-scale authorities to the executive authority and through which citizens rights are violated.

Hussein Ibrahim, the MB parliamentarian, welcomed both points raised by Hafez Abu Seada, adding that article 126 related must be amended. He called for a coordination of efforts to amend this article due to the humiliation it cause the Egyptian citizen and the authority it gives to the police to exercise more violations against Egyptian citizens.