Madam Chairperson, Commissioners,
The Egyptian Initiative for
Personal Rights would like to bring to the attention of the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights the situation of administrative
detainees in Egypt, particularly in the context of counter-terrorism
measures, as well as the general conditions of detention in Egypt.
My intervention will rely entirely on the first annual report of the
National Human Rights Council, the creation of which by President Mubarak in
2003 was hailed as a positive improvement several times in Egypt’s periodic
report that was reviewed by the African commission this week.
The report of the national human rights institution echoes the grave concern
by Egyptian and international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch, regarding the campaign of mass
arrests, arbitrary detention and torture and mistreatment conducted by
Egyptian security forces against the citizens of Northern Sinai,
particularly the city of Arish, in the context of the investigations into
the Taba bombings that took place last October and targeted Israeli and
other foreign holidaymakers. Six months after these bombings and despite the
fact that the authorities have already identified and indicted the alleged
perpetrators of these bombings, there remains to be an estimated 2,500
detainees under the Emergency Law. The report of the National Council
indicates that whole families, including women and children were detained,
tortured and kept as hostages.
These hundreds of detainees are part of the larger population of
administrative detainees incarcerated under the State of Emergency, which
has been enforced for 24 years now in violation of international human
rights law principles on the declaration of emergency rules. While the
government of Egypt has repeatedly refused to disclose the exact number of
administrative detainees, even to its national human rights council, the
estimated number of these detainees by independent human rights groups
ranges between 16,000 and 20,000 detainees, most of them were never charged
or tried and the rest have served their judicial sentences but were never
released by the ministry of the interior. The National Council’s report
describes this phenomena as “a flagrant violation of legal legitimacy”.
The report of the national human rights council also uses the term
“arbitrary torture” to describe the situation with regards to the treatment
of detainees in all places of detention, particularly in police stations and
offices of State Security Intelligence, which often leads to the death of
the victims. Types of torture described in the report include electric
shocks, hanging, beating, sexual harassment and threats of sexual abuse.
This only confirms the repeated warnings by Egyptian and international
independent human rights groups, as well as United Nations treaty bodies and
independent experts, against the systematic and widespread practice of
torture in places of detention, and the government’s grossly inadequate
response to these criminal practices.
Madam Chairperson, Commissioners,
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights welcomes the assertion by the
Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa that
Egypt will finally grant her access to the country's prisons after a
three-year delay, particularly given that the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Torture has been waiting for a similar response for nine years
now. We look forward to cooperating with her to guarantee the success of her
mission.
Madam Chairperson, Commissioners,
The review of Egypt’s implementation of the African Charter by this
distinguished Commission this year should serve as an opportunity for the
Commission to hold Egypt accountable to the commitments the government has
voluntarily made to respect the rights of its citizens to life, dignity,
freedom and security of person, fair trial and freedom from torture and
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under the provisions of the African
Charter.
Thank you.
