HRW report on Egypt: arbitrary detention, torture and fabricated “confessions”

Human Rights Watch publicou onte un informe sobre Exipto, centrado na descripción dun caso notable onde se combinan as detencións arbitrarias e as “confesións” extraídas baixo tortura. Este caso ilustra uns abusos que parecen ser sistemáticos, así como a impunidade dos mesmos.

O informe leva por título “Anatomy of a State Security Case: The ‘Victorious Sect’ Arrests”. Copio e pego un extracto da introducción:

[...] The underlying facts of these cases are also disturbing. To begin with, the 22 men were not arrested in late April 2006, when their detention was announced. Rather, they were detained weeks earlier, in February and March 2006, and held incommunicado in various SSI facilities around Cairo, including Lazoghli, SSI headquarters; the Gaber Ibn Hayan SSI facility in Giza; and the Nasr City SSI facility—none of which are legally authorized places of detention. Some of the men had been detained for over two months before the April announcement. [...]

Former detainees held with the 22 men, as well as their attorneys and family members, have provided information indicating that most or possibly all of the 22 men were tortured by SSI officials during the weeks they were held in custody before the April 19 announcement. [...]

Attorneys, former detainees, and other sources also indicated that many of the 22 men, while at the Giza facility and at Lazoghli (SSI headquarters), were handcuffed and blindfolded at almost all times during their detention, and described various ill effects on detainees’ mental health, arising both from physical torture and from constant blindfolding.

Former detainees asserted that the apparent purpose of the torture was to coerce the men to confess to the plots that were later described in the April 19 announcement. [...]

Despite obtaining “confessions”, Egyptian authorities abandoned their prosecution of the men several months after the April 2006 announcement. In August and September 2006, the State Security prosecution office declined to refer any the cases to court, as noted above, and issued orders that all of the men should be released. [...]

The purpose of this report is not just to describe the experience of this particular group of men at the hands of the SSI. Rather, it is a case study offered to illustrate how SSI operates across Egypt more generally. Based on our research into SSI operations over the last five years and our extensive interviews with attorneys for other detainees, there is a strong basis to conclude that abuses similar to those suffered by this group of 22 men have occurred in other cases.

Moreover, there is every reason to believe that similar abuses will occur in the future. [...]

SSI officers who engage in abuse are rarely held to account. A top Egyptian Interior Ministry official, in meetings with Human Rights Watch in February 2004 and February 2005, stated that the government has undertaken no criminal investigations or disciplinary measures in response to allegations of torture and ill-treatment by SSI officers since 1986. [...]