Rights Organizations Threaten To Circulate Egypt’s Torture Files Abroad

Rights Organizations Threaten To Circulate Egypt’s Torture Files Abroad

In a rights conference held on Saturday, October 19, rights and legal activists threatened to circulate Egypt”s torture files in continental and international assemblies, affirming that the continuing torture and lack of measures taken to end it indicates the state”s unwillingness to combat this serious phenomenon.


 


Eighteen rights organizations had called for the conference which was hosted by the Hisham Mubarak Law Center after the Press Syndicate refused to host it with the excuse that it was “political,” to discuss the latest torture cases in Egypt.


 


Among the distinguished guests in the conference was the husband of the Samalut victim, Mervet, who was killed along with the baby she had been pregnant with at the hands of police.


 


The victim”s sister-in-law and son who had witnessed the incident also spoke in the conference describing how the police had stormed into the victim”s house searching it in a barbarian manner explaining that when the victim objected to their searching her closet and throwing all her clothes out, one of the officers hit her in the stomach with his foot knocking her down the stairs and causing her to bleed.  When her sister-in-law cried for help, the officer physically assaulted and beat her and immediately escaped after he was certain of Mervet”s serious condition.  By the time Mervet was moved to the hospital she was a still body.


 


Mervet”s young son, Sayyid, was not able to talk for more than a minute as he burst out crying and couldn”t finish his testimony.


 


On the other hand, MB MP and Head of the Labors Rights Defense Authority in Alexandria Saber Abul-Futouh talked about a different case which had sparked media uproar, the case of Hamada Abdul-Latif in the Jazeerah school events.  Abul-Futouh narrated the details of the assault on Hamada at the hands of Deputy Officer of El-Mina Police Station El-Sayyid Mohamed El-Sayyid as he and his wife were taking their two daughters to school on the first day of the new academic year.


 


Abul-Futouh mentioned that the prosecution had ordered his detainment until he was completely recovered describing the decision as strange because there is no such provision in the law and further because Hamada”s conditions were hopeless.   Moreover, his situation requires immediate rehabilitative treatment abroad which is impossible under the strange orders to keep him detained.


 


From his part, President of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and Lawyer Ahmed Seif Al-Islam Hamad did not exclude the idea of circulating Egypt”s torture files under the growth of this phenomenon and the security”s approach with it saying, “There are three cases that have been circulated in the African courts including the case of the assaults on female journalists, so it”s possible that in the near future we circulate a number of other cases.”


 


Seif also confirmed that on Wednesday a consultative meeting will be held between all those interested in developing a strategy for combating torture in Egypt.


 


As for Sobhy Saleh, Member of the Legislative Committee in the Egyptian Parliament, he explained that events such as these drive people to trespass the law and the system, and hence, produce terrorists and criminals.  Similarly, these phenomena will make the country lose the love of its people.