(New York) – The March 11 acquittal of the
only military officer charged in the “virginity tests” trial is a blow
for any hopes of accountability for the abuses women have experienced at
the hands of the Egyptian military over the past year, Human Rights
Watch said today.
The military has failed to investigate and punish
credible claims of other instances of violence by its members against
women, including the beating and torture of women demonstrators by
military officers on March 9 and December 16, 2011.
The investigation and trial in the case, in which female protesters who
had been detained testified that a military doctor subjected them to
“virginity testing,” underscore the lack of independence of the military
justice system in trying such cases, Human Rights Watch said.
The
military prosecutor summoned no witnesses for the prosecution to
establish the charges under which he had referred the case to court, nor
did he challenge apparently factually inconsistent testimony by defense
witnesses. Despite clear statements from senior military leaders that
the incident had taken place, the trial did not examine who, and at what
rank, ordered the tests.
“The verdict in the ’virginity tests’ trial is just one more example of
the military’s failure to punish gross abuses against women and a
reminder that the military justice system lacks the fundamental
independence to remedy human rights abuses by the military,” said
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
On the afternoon of March 9, 2011, military officers
destroyed
a tent camp belonging to demonstrators in Tahrir Square's central
garden, and arrested at least 190 demonstrators. On March 10, according
to five women who gave accounts of their experiences, a military officer
went into the prison cell where 17 women were being held and asked if
they were married. A prison military doctor, Ahmed Adel, then conducted “
virginity tests” on seven of the women who said they were not, using his fingers to examine their hymens.
Three of the women, Samira Ibrahim, Rasha Abdel Rahman, and Salwa al
Hosseiny, told Human Rights Watch that a female prison warden and other
soldiers were present in the corridor when the doctor conducted the
“virginity tests.” Later that day, after trials lasting not more than 30
minutes, a military court sentenced all 17 of the women to suspended
one-year sentences for “thuggery.” The military officers released them
on March 12.
It took nine months, however, for military prosecutors to refer the
case on the allegations of virginity testing to court. The only military
officer charged and brought to trial was Adel, who was charged with
“public indecency” and “failure to obey orders.” He was acquitted on all
charges on March 11, 2012.
Even though both Ibrahim and Abdel Rahman
testified in court that Adel had subjected them to virginity tests, the
court based its decision on the doctor’s denial and the inconsistent
testimonies of two prison wardens. The military prosecutor failed to
challenge the inconsistencies or to investigate anyone in the command
chain who may or should have known that the tests took place and did not
prevent them.
Ibrahim’s lawyer, Ahmad Hossam, told Human Rights Watch that the
prosecutor also failed to summon a single witness to prove the charges
he set out in his indictment referring the case to court, and that Abdel
Rahman and three other witnesses for the prosecution were able to
testify only by petitioning the judge. Ibrahim had testified in her
capacity as the plaintiff since the case had started as a result of the
complaint she had filed.
Although they initially denied that any violations had taken place in
March 2011, generals of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF) later confirmed on at least two occasions that the virginity
tests had taken place on March 10 and that this was a routine practice.
In an interview with Shahira Amin, a journalist, on May 27, General
Ismail Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military, said that, “We
didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we
wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.”
On June 13, Mona Saif, founder of the No to Military Trials group, met
with SCAF General Hassan al-Ruweiny, who gave her the same explanation.
On June 26 Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of military
intelligence, confirmed to Amnesty International that the military had
carried out the tests, as the organization published in a
statement
the next day.
In addition, General Mohamed ‘Assar told Human Rights
Watch on June 7 that conducting virginity tests was “normal practice”
and that, “When any woman enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that
she be subjected to a virginity test.”
The flawed investigation and trial of this case reflects the lack of
the military prosecutor’s and military court’s independence, Human
Rights Watch said. The military justice system in Egypt is a division of
the Defense Ministry. The head of military justice, General Adel Morsy,
reports to the SCAF and appoints all the military judges by authority
vested in him by a SCAF decree.
In December Morsy
said
that there “was no decision in the first place to conduct virginity
tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations of
military prisons.” Given his status in the military hierarchy and his
authority over the military judge in the trial, such a statement
effectively prejudged certain aspects of the trial, precluding an
examination of whether the military ordered the virginity tests or had a
policy of carrying them out, Human Rights Watch said.
“Civilian courts, not military courts, should be in charge of
prosecuting the military for their ongoing abuses against civilians,”
Whitson said.
The acquittal of the military doctor reflects an ongoing pattern of the
military’s failure to investigate and prosecute cases involving
military violence against women. The military has not seriously
investigated allegations of
assault on women demonstrators on March 9, 2011, or incidents in which video footage captured groups of military police
beating and kicking women
on December 16, including one veiled woman who lay on the ground with
her torso exposed while six military police officers beat and kicked
her.
On December 19 General Adel Emara commented on the attack on the veiled
woman, telling journalists: “Yes this scene actually happened and we
are investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in
full. We do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not
taken the testimony of any of the women assaulted in these cases, human
rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch, nor made public any of the
results of their alleged investigations.
An investigation into the
incident by civilian prosecutors also has failed to interrogate any
military officers, human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch.
Despite the fact that military courts have issued harsh sentences,
including many death sentences, in cases of rape by civilians, there
appears to be a significant discrepancy in sentencing when a military
officer is tried for the same crime.
Human Rights Watch has been able to
identify only one case in which a civilian allegedly raped by a
military officer filed a criminal complaint that went to trial: the case
of a 34-year-old British woman who said she was raped in a room at a
checkpoint in Sinai on May 15, 2011. The military court sentenced the
officer to five years in prison, which it commuted to three years in
February.
Proposals to
amend
the Code of Military Justice should not only prohibit trying civilians
before military courts but also allow for trials of military officers
before civilian courts in cases of serious human rights violations.
“The military has chosen to cover up the ‘virginity tests’ just as it
has failed to investigate or prosecute anyone for serious allegations
about the beating of women protesters in December,” Whitson said.
“Military impunity will continue as long as the military justice system
is the only place victims of military abuse can file complaints.”
The Virginity Tests Trial
Failure to Investigate and Prosecute Adequately
Human rights lawyers representing Samira Ibrahim filed a complaint on
June 23 at the office of the military prosecutor. The deputy chief
military prosecutor summoned Ibrahim on June 28 to take her testimony.
On July 10 the prosecutor summoned Adel, a 27-year-old first lieutenant
and the military doctor on duty at the military prison at the time of
the tests, who denied that the invasive procedure had taken place.
Ahmed Hossam, Ibrahim’s lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that over the
following eight months whenever he asked about the progress of the
investigation, military prosecutors told him that the results of the
investigation by the military police at the prison “weren’t ready yet.”
In contrast, investigations by military prosecutors of civilians can
last as little as 30 minutes, and in high-profile cases three weeks,
before the prosecutor refers the case to court.
It was not until December 20 that Morsy announced in a
news release
that the virginity tests case had been referred to trial before
military courts. The prosecutor’s referral order is dated December 18.
It came after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in
November calling for an immediate end to military rule, and further protests on
December 16, when military police were caught on video beating unarmed protesters, including several women.
Charges and Indictment
Case documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that the
military prosecutor limited his investigation to interrogating Adel and
did not investigate the potential responsibility of commanders for
ordering procedures or indict any of the commanding officers who oversaw
the arrest, detention, and trial of the 174 protesters and the
detention of the 17 women in the military prison. He indicted only the
prison doctor and added a second charge of “failing to obey orders” to
indicate that this was an isolated act that the doctor had initiated
independently.
Lawyers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
obtained the prosecutor’s interrogation and indictment sheets. These
reports indicate that on December 13 the military prosecutor
interrogated Adel and charged him with “sexual assault” [
hatk‘ard]
and on December 18 issued a charge sheet accusing Adel of “violating
the victim Samira Ibrahim by exceeding the bounds of a medical
examination and subjecting her to a virginity test and revealing her
area of chastity.” [
manatiq al‘iffa].On the interrogation
sheet, the prosecutor stated that Adel had subjected Ibrahim to the test
in full view of other people in the military prison.
Yet in the December 18 referral order, the prosecutor had reduced the
charges from sexual assault to committing “an act of public indecency”
and “failure to obey orders.” Hossam told Human Rights Watch that he and
other lawyers had on four occasions asked the judge to amend the
charges from “act of public indecency” and “failure to follow orders” to
“sexual assault” (
hatk‘ard).
The SCAF had in March 2011
amended article 268 of the Egyptian penal code on sexual assault,
increasing the penalty from hard labor to imprisonment of up to seven
years and stating that “any person who violates another with the use of
force or threat, or attempts to do so, shall be punished with
imprisonment.” The judge refused to restore the sexual assault charge.
Witnesses and Evidence
At the trial, two women testified that Adel had subjected them to the
tests and two others that SCAF generals had confirmed the incident to
them.
At least four witnesses summoned by defense lawyers who said they were
in the military prison that day supported the military doctor’s
testimony that the tests had not taken place. They included the head of
the military prison, Major Ashraf Sayed Mohamed, and the two female
prison wardens, Fawziya Sobhi Hassan and Abeer Rashad Abdel Moemen.
However, Abdel Moemen testified that she had not been present during the
military doctor’s examination of the women, contradicting her June 9
testimony to the military prosecutor that she had been with the doctor
at the time of the examination and was the only one present.
Hassan also had told the prosecutor on December 19 that she had been
present during the examinations with Abdel Moemen, but on February 6
testified in court that Hassan had been the only one with the doctor.
The prosecutor did not raise the issue of the inconsistent testimony
during the trial nor did he cross-examine the witnesses.
Since the Code of Military Justice does not recognize the standing of
the civil parties to the case, Ibrahim’s lawyers, Ahmed Hossam and Adel
Ramadan, only managed to get access to the case file and permission to
intervene in the case after appealing to Morsy on January 3. The lawyers
contended they had a right to intervene in the proceedings on the basis
of article 272 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows victims
the right to cross-examine witnesses.
Morsy allowed them to appear as
lawyers for the victim to intervene in the case, but did not allow them
to file compensation claims. Morsy told Hossam that he had issued orders
to allow lawyers for civilian claimants to intervene in all military
trials.
Hossam and Ramadan next asked the judge to summon witnesses for the
prosecution, since the military prosecutor had not summoned a single
witness to establish the charges. The judge approved this request, and
the lawyers brought forward four witnesses to testify on February 26.
One of the four was Rasha
Abdel Rahman, who confirmed Ibrahim’s
testimony.
She told Human Rights Watch that when she saw him in court on February
26 she recognized the accused as the one who had subjected her to the
virginity test. She told Human Rights Watch:
There was a prison warden called Azza dressed in black. I was the
fifth one to be examined. They took me to a bed in the passageway. There
were others there: the prison doctor, a soldier called Ibrahim, Azza
the prison warden, and a man standing in the room opposite. The doctor
examined me with his hand.
Cover-up, Despite the Military Leadership’s Admission
In the first three months after the incident, members of the SCAF had
repeatedly denied that the virginity tests took place, including in the
above statements by Generals Mohammed ‘Assar and Ismail Etman.
However, in the trial session on February 26, Shahira Amin, the
journalist, testified that SCAF members had confirmed to her that the
incident had taken place. In addition, Mona Saif, founder of the No To
Military Trials group, testified that when their group had raised the
incident in a meeting with a SCAF general, he had told them that
“virginity tests” were a routine practice. Heba Morayef from Human
Rights Watch also testified that a SCAF member had told her that
virginity tests were a normal practice and that they were regularly
conducted on all women prisoners.
Amin recounted what General Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military,
told her in a telephone conversation on May 27 as she was interviewing him for a story for CNN:
The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine.
These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in
Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)….
We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so
we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.
Saif testified that General Hassan al-Ruweiny had told her on June 13
that the tests were a routine procedure on women detainees in military
prisons conducted to prevent future claims of sexual assault.
Morayef testified that she was part of a Human Rights Watch delegation
who had met with Major General ‘Assar on June 7, who told the
delegation:
You have to take into account the differences in culture around the
world. There are Asian countries where you are offered the brain of a
monkey as a guest. There are differences in cultures… When any woman
enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that she be subjected to a
virginity test… We have issued instructions that this should not take
place again.
Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui at Amnesty International also told Human Rights
Watch that when their delegation met Major General Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, on June 26, he
confirmed to them that the military had carried out the tests in order to protect the military against possible allegations of rape.
Civilian Administrative Court Orders an End to Virginity Tests
Egyptian human rights lawyers had filed a separate case before an
administrative court, asking the court to order an end to virginity
tests in military prisons as a violation of human rights.
On December 27 Egypt’s administrative court, the Council of State,
ruled in Samira Ibrahim’s favor in the case. Citing Egypt’s Code of
Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Declaration, and Egypt’s ratification
of treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, presiding judge Abdel Salam al-Naggar ruled that the practice
of conducting virginity tests on women in detention was “targeted at
humiliating women participating in demonstrations” and that they were
“an illegal act and a violation of women’s rights and an assault on
their dignity.” Judges in administrative courts can issue findings of
law based on
prima facie findings of an alleged practice when they rule a case admissible but do not make findings about specific criminal incidents.
The judge cited article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which
states that every detainee must be treated with respect for human
dignity and prohibits physical or psychological ill-treatment, and
article 46, which states that women can only be searched with their
consent. The judge also cited that articles 8, 9, and 17 of the
Constitutional Declaration guarantee the right of people in detention to
be treated with dignity, not to be subjected to any physical or
psychological harm, and not to be detained in places other than those
specified in the prisons law. He said that any violation of these rights
is a crime and that the state is under an obligation to provide a just
remedy to those whose rights have been violated.
Later that day, Morsy issued a
news release
in which he said that the decision of the administrative court was not
applicable because there “was no decision in the first place to conduct
virginity tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations
of military prisons.” He said that if these tests were to take place,
they would be the act of an individual, who should be punished.
The SCAF has in the past implemented court rulings by Egypt’s
administrative courts, such as the Council of State judgment ordering
Egypt’s executive authorities to enable Egyptians living outside Egypt
to vote in the country’s November parliamentary elections.
Virginity Tests Under International Law
As party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Egypt is obliged to
protect women from cruel and inhuman treatment and discrimination, and
to ensure their right to privacy. Coercive virginity tests violate all
three of those obligations, Human Rights Watch said.
The virginity tests also violate guarantees of freedom from
discrimination in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is reflected in the March 30
Constitutional Declaration that acts as Egypt’s transitional
constitution. The CEDAW Committee has previously stated that it views
with the “gravest concern the practice of forced gynecological
examinations of women … including of women prisoners while in custody.”
The committee “emphasized that such coercive practices were degrading,
discriminatory and unsafe and constituted a violation by state
authorities of the bodily integrity, person and dignity of women.”
Conducting virginity tests without the informed consent of the girl or
woman violates her right to bodily integrity, dignity, privacy, and
equality before the law, and would amount to a sexual assault. Such
assaults cannot be justified, being based on an intrinsically
discriminatory presumption that an examination of female virginity can
be a legitimate interest of the state. Under international law virginity
tests committed in custody constitute cruel and inhuman treatment.
These exams are painful, degrading, and frightening. Victims attest that
being forced to undress and undergo exams is degrading both as a
physical violation and for the threatened consequences, given their
status as prisoners.
Impunity for Violence Against Women Demonstrators
In addition to the “virginity tests” case, the Egyptian military has
failed to punish other violence against women demonstrators. The
military has not investigated or punished the beating and torture of
women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16,
despite promises to do so.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed 16 men and women who testified to
being tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military
officers on March 9 in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum, adjacent to
Tahrir Square. Rasha Azab, a 28-year-old journalist for
Al-Fajr Weekly, told Human Rights Watch she was handcuffed to an outside wall in a museum courtyard:
They were kicking me in my stomach, hitting me with wooden sticks
and slapping my face. They called me dirty names. At one point, one of
them came and tied my hands even more tightly. I stood there for four
hours. I saw dozens of men being dragged on the floor and whipped. All
of them were the people who had stayed in the square. I heard people
screaming from inside the museum, and [the soldiers] said, “You should
thank God you are not inside.”
On March 28 SCAF Statement No. 29 on the military’s official Facebook
page said the military would “look into the truth of what was said
recently” about “the torture of women arrested during the latest sit-in
in Tahrir by military officers.”
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights obtained an April 2011
military police report signed by General Hamdi Badeen, head of the
military police, titled “on the March 9 arrest of demonstrations from
Tahrir square” and marked “very secret.” The document states that:
During the filming of the detainees it was noted that there were
bruises and abrasions on some of the men and women and they said that
some of those inside the museum … and some members of the armed forces …
who were inside the museum attacked them, which is what led to these
bruises.
Despite this report, however, there has been no investigation by the
military prosecutors into the torture of the women and men. Only the
military prosecutor can summon military officers to interrogate them on
such charges, and thus far, the military prosecutors have not summoned
any of the victims to take their testimonies, which is the first step in
any investigation.
On December 16 security forces
attacked
and beat female and male demonstrators who had been protesting in front
of the offices of the Egyptian cabinet. At least six military police
officers were caught on camera apparently beating, stomping on, and
kicking a veiled woman whose clothes had been torn off, exposing her
torso. In other footage, at least four military police were seen beating
and kicking another woman, Azza Helal, as she lay motionless on the
street with sticks. Helal, who spent over a week in hospital with
serious injuries, has filed a criminal complaint with the civilian
public prosecution; the other woman, whose picture was splashed across
the international media, has not come forward.
General Adel Emara confirmed that this incident had taken place and
told journalists: “yes this scene actually happened, and we are
investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in full. We
do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not summoned the
victims to testify or formally questioned any military officers in
connection with a criminal investigation of this incident.
On December 20, while a women’s march of up to 10,000 people was
winding through the streets of downtown Cairo, the SCAF posted a
statement on its official Facebook page:
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its deep regret to the great women of Egypt for the infractions (tagawuzat)
that occurred during the events of the Cabinet demonstrations, and
affirms its respect and appreciation for the women of Egypt and their
right to demonstrate and participate politically in Egypt … taking into
account that all necessary legal measures have been taken to hold
accountable those responsible for these infractions.
Despite this statement, there has been no “disclosure” by the
military of the result of any investigation it may have conducted or
whether it has ordered disciplinary measures short of a criminal
investigation. The investigation into the violence during the December
demonstrations at the offices of the cabinet, led by civilian
prosecutors, has not included the military officers involved in the
violence. Human rights lawyers Basma Zahran and Ahmad Hossam, who
represent some of the women beaten and sexually abused, both confirmed
to Human Rights Watch that civilian judicial authorities have not sought
to identify which military officers may have been responsible for
beating the women, for example by ordering a review of available video
footage.
At least two of the women told the civilian investigative judge who was
interrogating them in connection with the incident that they had been
beaten and sexually abused by military officers. Had there been an
intention to investigate, the investigative judge would have had to
transfer the complaint to the military prosecution, since only the
military prosecution can interrogate military officers as accused. The
first step in any investigation would be for military prosecutors to
summon victims in order to take their testimonies and this has yet to
occur.
Discrepancy in Sentencing Civilians and Military in Cases of Rape
Human Rights Watch is aware of only one case in which a crime of rape
committed by a military officer against a civilian was prosecuted and
punished. The victim, a 34-year-old woman from the United Kingdom who
did not wish to be identified, was in a shared taxi on May 14, 2011, in
Sinai when military officers stopped the taxi at a checkpoint before
al-Arish, told the woman to get out, and ordered the taxi to drive on.
The woman told Human Rights Watch that the military officer had told her
to go into the building at the checkpoint, where she would have to stay
until morning, and that about 15 or 20 other soldiers were at the
checkpoint. She said the officer led her up to a small room on the
second floor. In a statement to Human Rights Watch, she wrote:
I became even more scared and stood up to leave, but he stood up and
pushed me back. I knew that the other soldiers were just outside, so I
screamed, “Help!”, as loudly as I could, but I think this would have
only lasted for a second or two at most because he put his hand over my
mouth. I struggled to get away but he was really strong. He tried to
kiss me so he must have taken his hand off my mouth at some point.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of what happened next. I know that
he pushed me onto the floor, because I remember being face down on the
floor, twisted with my face against the wall, and him somehow on top of
me. I was very scared, and shocked. He pulled my jeans down and I felt
something go inside my vagina. His hand was over my face and at one
point I managed to move my head so that I could say “I can’t breathe.” I
thought that he might kill me at this point. I don’t remember it going
in or out of me – I just remember the feeling of it inside me. I was
surprised it happened so quickly. He made a noise; I think he had
ejaculated.
On May 15 she reported the crime to the tourist police, who referred
her to the military prosecution, where she filed a formal complaint. The
woman described what happened at the military court building in Nasr
City:
After a few hours of waiting I said that I wanted to go, but I was
told we weren’t allowed to leave. I started asking for a lawyer because I
wanted help … Once I started asking to leave, and asking for a lawyer,
the military personnel present … started asking me if I was making it
up, why was I changing my mind, and telling me I did not need a lawyer
as I was not accused, I was the victim. I stood up to leave but the gate
was blocked by army personnel holding guns. This was terrifying. I was
extremely upset and kept asking to leave.
The military prosecutor eventually allowed her to leave that evening,
telling her to return the following day. The next day, an officer in
civilian clothes who identified himself as “detective Hani” asked her to
do a “re-enactment” of the rape on the floor, showing the positions she
had been in. The military officer then asked her to return the next
day. When she arrived, military officials told her that they wanted her
to identify her attacker from a line-up of five men, which she did.
It was only months later that her Egyptian lawyers to whom she had
granted power of attorney managed to find out that an Ismailiya military
court had convicted the officer of rape and sentenced him to five years
in prison. However, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawy, the Defense
Minister and head of the SCAF, ordered a retrial of the case, and on
February 6, the court reduced the sentence to three years.
This sentence stands in marked contrast to the sentences issued by
military tribunals against civilians convicted of rape, where sentences
have ranged from 25 years to the death penalty. For example, in March
2011, an Ismailiya military court sentenced a 25-year-old civilian,
Ismail Mohamed, to 20 years for attempted rape. On May 16 the Supreme
Military Court convicted Mohamed Tarek, Karim El Sawy, Ahmed El Ashry,
and Mahmoud Hassan of kidnapping and raping a woman and sentenced them
to death.
Military Trials of Human Rights Abuses Lead to Impunity
The independence necessary to investigate and prosecute military
abuses generally does not exist when military authorities investigate
human rights violations by military personnel and prosecute them in
military courts. Both the prosecution and judges should be independent
of those they are investigating, including of the chain of command,
Human Rights Watch said.
The Egyptian military justice system, created by Law 25 of 1966,
includes courts and a prosecution section and is a division of the
Defense Ministry. All military judges and prosecutors are serving
members of the military, subject to the military hierarchy, selected by
the head of the military justice system, and appointed by the defense
minister. They have no formal independence and report to Morsy, the head
of the military justice system, who reports to the defense minister,
currently Tantawy, who as head of the SCAF is exercising presidential
powers.
The 2005 United Nations Set of Principles for the Protection and
Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity state that
“the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be restricted solely to
specifically military offenses committed by military personnel, to the
exclusion of human rights violations, which shall come under the
jurisdiction of the ordinary domestic courts.” The Inter-American system
of human rights protection has opposed the use of military tribunals to
try military personnel in cases of human rights violations.
In its long-term work in
Mexico and
Chile
for example, Human Rights Watch has found that restricting jurisdiction
over human rights abuses committed by military personnel to military
tribunals will lead to impunity. A 2006 report by the United Nations
special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and
consequences, held that after asserting jurisdiction to investigate and
prosecute cases in which members of the military had raped women in
southern Mexico, “rather than carrying out full and impartial
investigations, military investigators have reportedly delayed criminal
proceedings and tried to disprove the allegations thereby placing the
burden of proof on the victim.”
In its
report “The Road Ahead: A Human Rights Agenda for Egypt’s New Parliament
,”
Human Rights Watch identified the Code of Military Justice as one of
the priorities for legislative reform to end trials of civilians before
military courts and to allow civilian courts to try military officers
for serious human rights abuses. It said:
-
The Egyptian parliament should amend the Code of Military Justice to
restrict the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of only military
personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature; and
-
The Code of Military Justice should be amended to explicitly state
that the public prosecutor shall be competent to investigate complaints
regarding military abuse and that members of the military can be tried
before civilian courts in cases of abuse and ill-treatment
