Former prez. candidate sentenced to jail, in bid to bar him from 2018 elections

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Egypt: Former presidential candidate given jail term in bid to stop him running in 2018 election

25 September 2017

Today’s conviction of Khalid Ali, a former presidential candidate and prominent human rights lawyer who is widely viewed as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s top contender for the 2018 presidential elections, is politically motivated, said Amnesty International.

Khaled Ali was sentenced to three months in prison which would prevent him from standing in the 2018 presidential elections if the verdict is confirmed on appeal. The court found him guilty of “violating public decency” in relation to a photograph showing him celebrating a court victory after successfully reversing a controversial Egyptian government decision to hand over control of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

He was released on a bail of 1000 Egyptian pounds pending appeal.

“Khaled Ali’s politically motivated conviction today is a clear signal that the Egyptian authorities are intent on eliminating any rival who could stand in the way of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s victory in next year’s elections. It also illustrates the government’s ruthless determination to crush dissent to consolidate its power,” said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty International’s Head of North Africa Campaigns.

“It beggars belief that Khaled Ali, a prominent human rights lawyer and political activist, has been given a jail term simply for celebrating his victory in a court case. His conviction on this absurd charge must be quashed.”

The trial in Khaled Ali’s case was also riddled with flaws; the court issued its decision without hearing the defence lawyers’ final pleadings or allowing them to cross-examine witnesses for the prosecution about disputed video evidence submitted against Khaled Ali, which his defence lawyers argued was fabricated.

Earlier this year Amnesty International warned that the Egyptian authorities have intensified their crackdown on opposition activists ahead of the 2018 presidential election by rounding up activists from opposition parties. 



*Photo by Mohamed El-Shahed, courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

At least 60 opponents arrested in connection to Tiran & Sanafir handover

Mada Masr
Rights Monitor: Police have arrested 60 opponents of the Tiran and Sanafir agreement 

Friday, 16 June 2017

Police have arrested a total of 60 people connected to political action against the agreement to concede sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia, according to the Freedom for the Brave campaign.

The nationwide arrests commenced after Parliament approved the agreement on Wednesday night, with police moving to detain political activists and party members in Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta, Sharqiya, Beni Suef, Fayoum, Luxor, Port Said and Suez.

Lawyer Mohamed Abdel Aziz told Mada Masr that those arrested come from several political parties, including the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the Constitution Party, the Bread and Freedom Party, the Popular Current Party and the Karama Party, as well as from Egypt’s independent activist community, all of whom voiced their opposition to the agreement.

According to Abdel Aziz, security forces arrested many of the activists and party members from their homes, including Hassan Ahwany who is being questioned by the Dokki prosecution in Cairo and is being represented by Abdel Aziz.

Many of those arrested will be questioned by prosecutors on Friday, including six people who were arrested in Port Said and Tanta, according to the Front to Defend Egyptian Protesters.

The FDEP has added that activists Mahmoud Nagib and Israa Fahid face charges of incitement to protest and obstructing public transportation, and that three people arrested in Luxor on Thursday are in the National Security Agency’s custody. In Ismailia, Constitution Party member Ahmed Santos was questioned by the prosecutor, who has issued Santos a 15-day detention order pending an NSA report.

According to lawyer Abdel Aziz Yousef, the prosecutor issued Egyptian Social Democratic Party member Islam Marei a 15-day detention order pending investigation into charges of incitement against the regime; insulting state institutions, including the Armed Forces, police and the judiciary; distributing anti-government flyers; and using social networks for incitement against state institutions.

Abdel Aziz described the arrests as “ferocious,” saying security forces are attempting to prevent any mobilization against the Tiran and Sanafir agreement. The scope of the arrests, he asserted, is disproportionate to the protests that have taken place in reaction to the agreement.

Police arrested eight people in the proximity of the Journalists Syndicate’s headquarters in downtown Cairo on Wednesday night, which was the site of a protest against the Tiran and Sanafir agreement. All eight were released yesterday on LE10,000 bail.

Police also dispersed a demonstration on Wednesday in front of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party’s headquarters in downtown Cairo, barricading the protesters inside the building, according party member Ziad al-Eleimi.

Trump-Sisi meeting confronted with protest campaigns on streets & online

The New Arab
#FreedomFirst: US activists blast Trump meeting with Egypt's Sisi

March 30, 2017 

 
Activists in the United States have launched a campaign to highlight rampant human rights abuses in Egypt in the run-up to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's White House meeting next week.

The "Freedom First" campaign run by US-Egyptian former political prisoner, Mohamed Soltan, kicked off on Thursday after activists put up thousands of anti-Sisi regime posters in Washington DC.

"This campaign is an effort to harness that same energy and build on it to do the same for others who remain in the grips of injustice," Soltan told The New Arab
 
A press statement said: "President Trump is scheduled to meet with Sisi, who Trump has called a 'fantastic guy' with whom he has 'good chemistry'."

"Sisi has also overseen horrific human rights abuses, including the massacre of more than 1,000 activists in a single day, and the jailing of more than 40,000 activists and journalists without charge or trial," it added.

The campaign hopes to raise awareness about the tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience in Egypt and the at least seven US nationals unjustly imprisoned on politicized charges.

One Egyptian-US dual citizen being held is activist Aya Hegazy, who worked with homeless children until police raided her charity in May 2014 and arrested her and the staff at the Belady Foundation for Street Children.

Hegazy has since been imprisoned on charges of exploiting minors and encouraging them to join political protests led by the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Soltan, whose father is a leading Brotherhood official, was arrested in August 2013 and sentenced to life in prison for allegedly attempting to "destabilize" the country.

He was deported to the US in June 2015 after going on a 489-day hunger strike, causing relatives to fear for his life. His father, Salah was sentenced to death in the same trial as his son and remains imprisoned in Egypt.

"I never lose sight of the immense effort it took on the part of thousands of people, many of whom had never met me, to save my life," Soltan said.

Soltan had originally planned to kick off the campaign with ad spaces on the Washington DC Metro, however, the transport network rejected the ads, arguing they violated its ban on "issues-oriented advertising."

In 2013, then-army chief Sisi led a military coup against Egypt's first freely elected leader - the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi - amid mass protests against his presidency.

The overthrow unleashed a deadly crackdown on Islamists, with more than 800 peaceful protesters killed in a single day when police dispersed a Cairo sit-in demanding Morsi's reinstatement.

Egyptian courts have since sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death, including Morsi and other senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

This week, the White House announced that Sisi would make an official visit to visit US President Donald Trump on April 3 to "discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues".

The hashtag #FreedomFirst has gained traction on Twitter shortly after it was introduced on Thursday with social media activists calling attention to individual cases of political prisoners under the Sisi regime.

Mubarak is free again; What does this say about Egypt?

Washington Post
Hosni Mubarak is free again. What does this say about Egypt?

Tuesday March 28, 2017

Mieczyslaw Boduszynski 

After six years of procedural and legal maneuvers, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is free. The top Egyptian appeals court acquitted him of involvement in the killing of protesters during the 2011 popular revolt. Mubarak’s expected freedom comes as many leaders of that revolt languish in Egyptian prisons. The other members of Mubarak’s regime put on trial in 2011 have also been set free. How did we get to this place?

In the weeks and months following the toppling of the former Egyptian strongman in 2011, calls for justice on Cairo’s Tahrir Square turned into unified demands for prosecutions of Mubarak and other officials responsible for human rights abuses and economic crimes.

By August 2011, Mubarak, his sons and a number of his top officials were on trial, accused of corruption and ordering security forces to use lethal force against protesters during the revolution.

The sight of Mubarak in the defendant’s cage became a defining image of the Arab Spring. The trial stunned Egyptians, many of whom doubted until the last minute that their autocratic leader would be brought to justice.

Egypt is not unique. Oppositions throughout the world have to balance the desire for justice with the political constraints inherent in the absence of an all-out revolution, coup or military victory.

Retributive measures are frequently replaced with more lenient policies. The possibilities for accountability are determined by the distribution of power among key actors prevailing at the moment of transition. The greater the strength of old elites vis-à-vis the new ones, the less likely are criminal trials and other forms of retributive justice.

The Mubarak trial began primarily in the context of a revolutionary moment in which the power of the “street” was at its peak and the then-ruling military council faced intense popular pressure to prosecute Mubarak and his top officials. Yet, even when the revolutionary logic was at its height, protesters had to contend with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces’s (SCAF) determination to use its powers to protect its privileges and to move the country toward elections on its own terms.

The Mubarak trial was one of concessions made by the SCAF in a bid for legitimacy. After the parliamentary elections of December-January 2011-2012 conferred electoral legitimacy upon the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the party sought to negotiate the terms of the forthcoming handover of power with the SCAF in anticipation of the central role it hoped to play in governing the country.

Yet, the military allowed the trial to go forward, and even after 2013, President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi appeared in no hurry to free Mubarak. Why?

Interest in ensuring stability, building its legitimacy and protecting its extensive economic and political privileges drove the military’s approach. Key military figures, al-Sissi included, have also attempted to co-opt the “spirit” of the revolution, which was broadly popular, for their own purposes.

For example, the military has simultaneously detained and repressed young revolutionary protesters while at the same time going to great lengths to attempt to co-opt the revolutionaries and the revolution, even giving special medals to the martyrs who died during the uprising. The military’s decision to allow the trial to move forward was part of broader goals than just stability and momentarily pacifying protesters.

Indeed, the military sought longer-term legitimacy from the “street” by co-opting the revolution and buying support for an early transition plan. As such, the military largely conceded to demands for justice in an ad hoc, reactive way, such as allowing for Mubarak’s prosecution after days of large demonstrations.

The decision to place Mubarak and his associates on trial was a clear response to rising public pressure — and it also created a lasting perception of the trial as political spectacle. That political perception underscored how hastily prepared the trial was.

It was not clear until the last moment that the trial would actually go forward. Public pressure was central to Mubarak’s trial in the first place — and it raised questions as to whether any judge would be able to render a verdict without regard to public opinion.

Judges were fully aware that anything less than a guilty verdict would lead to massive street demonstrations. Despite this public pressure for a conviction, state officials effectively blocked the prosecutor from gathering sufficient evidence to establish Mubarak’s alleged role in ordering the killings.

As the initial symbolic force of the trial started to wane, its shallow nature did not escape the notice of those who paid the highest price for it. As a mother of one of the victims said, “We didn’t ask them for financial compensation or pensions. They are doing that only to pacify people’s anger. All we want is fair trials.” Beyond popular anger at the shortcomings of the Mubarak trial remained broader concerns about more far-reaching reforms.

The shortcomings of the Mubarak trial, and his ultimate acquittal, may lead one to argue that the prospects for transitional justice were inherently limited in the aftermath of a popular, but still incomplete, political revolution. The truth is that the Mubarak trial was possible precisely because its genesis was associated with a time when the revolutionary logic of the Egyptian transition ruled.

Under its subsequent, negotiated, logic (and then its rollback after 2013), the possibilities for transitional justice greatly diminished. The sight of Mubarak being rolled into the defendant’s cage to be tried for his crimes was a powerful symbol of what 2011 represented for Egyptians and other Arabs.

Never before had an Arab leader been held accountable in such a visible way. Yet, the fact that the trial was ultimately shallow, and that the conviction was ultimately overturned, is an equally potent indicator of just how short the revolution fell of accomplishing its goals of justice.



*Artwork by Carlos Latuff, courtesy of Latuff Cartoons

Obituary: In memory of Seoud Omar, prominent labor organizer

Mada Masr
Obituary: In memory of prominent labor activist Seoud Omar

Thursday, 19 January 2017 

Jano Charbel

The funeral service for Seoud Omar, a prominent Egyptian labor activist and an organizer in the Suez independent trade union movement who died in a traffic accident on January 13, was held in Suez City on Saturday.

The accident occurred on the road to Suez City, where Omar was returning after speaking hours earlier at a Cairo event organized by the “3ayzen Ne3esh” (We Want to Live) campaign.

Omar had long worked to pry the labor movement away from the grip of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which has monopolized labor action for long stretches since the union was established in 1957. He also played an important advisory role in organizing protests in seven Suez Canal Authority-affiliate companies during the 2011 popular uprising against the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.

In late 2013, he was involved in the launch of the Thowwar Front (Revolutionaries Front) alongside other members of the Egyptian political sphere aiming to continue the goals of the January 25 revolution and move beyond the political duality of the moment that was centered on support for either the Muslim Brotherhood or the military.

The Suez City funeral attracted over 1,000 people, according to journalist Mostafa Bassiouny, who attended the service and called Omar an “exceptional labor leader.” Workers, political leaders and members of civil society, trade unions and professional syndicates traveled from governorates across Egypt to pay their respects to Omar.

After news of Omar’s death was announced, Egyptian television shows and news outlets highlighted the 55-year-old Suez Canal Authority employee’s lifetime achievements, while a number of political parties and organizations similarly issued statements of tribute.

Galal al-Gizawy – a Suez Canal Authority employee in Port Said City who worked with Omar and had been a member alongside him in the leftist Tagammu Party since the 1980s before leaving in 2005 due to disagreements over the party’s policies and leadership – called Omar “an exemplary socialist activist and a pivotal actor in promoting union consciousness among workers.” He also emphasized that Omar, who held a law degree, played an important role in providing legal advise to workers during the 2011 labor protests that coincided with popular movements against the Mubarak government.

“We have lost Seoud Omar and the labor movement feels this loss,” Gizawy said. “He leaves us with a new lot of workers and unionists who were inspired by his example. He may have passed away, but his memory will remain very much alive with us.”

Gizawi added that Omar was: “A dear friend. He was a cheerful, honest, and kindhearted man, who was constantly smiling. A smile that cannot be forgotten.”
 

Novelist Ahdaf Soueif expressed her condolences in a tweet, writing: “Seoud Omar, you had a great deal yet to offer the country.”

Ahmed Bakr, a worker at the IFFCO Oils Company in Suez, stated that Omar had helped him and his coworkers to organize their local factory union, and that he was a labor-rights “mentor” to many Egyptian workers.

Omar was instrumental in the 2011 founding of the loose association of independent labor organizations known as the Suez Federation of Unions, Bakr added. The IFFCO Oils Company Company Union in addition to cement, textile, steel, ceramic, petroleum, longshoresmen, food processing and transportation unions were brought under the wider banner provided by the federation.

The labor leader also mounted two unsuccessful bids for parliamentary election, once in 2010 and another after the January 25 revolution.

Social media users expressed their condolences for Omar using the Arabic language hashtag Seoud Omar.

Several political parties and groupings paid tribute to the Egyptian labor leader, including the Strong Egypt Party, the Revolutionary Socialists, Popular Socialist Alliance Party, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Bread and Freedom Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, Suez Youth for Change Movement and the Arab labor groupings.

In an interview conducted with Mada Masr one week before his death, Omar predicted that rising inflation rates and stagnating wages, coupled with the government’s austerity measures and crackdown on workers’ protests, would result in significant labor unrest across Egypt.

“Take it from me,” Omar said. “After all these years in the labor movement, I can safely tell you that there will be a massive wave of workers’ protests affecting the country soon.”

Interview with Irish socialist MP on Egyptian-Irish political prisoner Ibrahim Halawa

Mada Masr

Sisi to Irish delegation: ‘If I had the power to, I would free Ibrahim Halawa’

An interview with TD Paul Murphy on the Irish delegation's visit to Egypt

January 14, 2017

Jano Charbel

A delegation of eight Irish parliamentarians departed from Egypt on Friday evening, following a five-day visit in which they met with senior state leaders – including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and parliamentary speaker Ali Abdel Aal, among others – in hopes of securing the release of Irish-Egyptian political detainee Ibrahim Halawa.

The delegation was also able to meet with the 21-year-old Halawa himself, who has been imprisoned for the past three and half years in Egypt while he awaits trial.

Giving Mada Masr an account of what took place in the closed-door meetings is Irish lawmaker Paul Murphy, who is a member of the Anti-Austerity Alliance and Ireland’s Socialist Party. Murphy also hails from the same constituency as Halawa’s family, Firhouse, a southern suburb of the Irish capital Dublin.

Murphy explains that the cross-party Irish delegation, in which he was a representative, was able to meet with Halawa at Wadi al-Natrun Prison on Tuesday.
 
The parliamentarian, or TD (Teachta Dála), as they are known in Ireland, tells Mada Masr, “Physically, he looked okay. He said he was very happy to see us and to know that there is a lot campaigning and solidarity for him.”

According to Murphy, Halawa’s extended detention – he has been in jail since he was 17-years-old – has had a clear physical and psychological toll on him. Halawa has recently started his third hunger strike since he was incarcerated in 2013.

“He had fainted on Monday due to low glucose levels,” Murphy says. Fearing for his life and well-being, all eight TDs called on Halawa to call off his hunger strike. “He said he would consider it.”

Halawa has reported being repeatedly beaten and abused by police personnel in prison.

“He’s desperate to leave,” Murphy says, adding that Halawa “wanted to come to Ireland with us on Friday.”

But this seemed impossible, as the Irish-Egyptian’s trial — which includes nearly 500 other defendants — has been postponed 17 times.

Halawa and his three sisters — Somaia, Fatima and Omaima — were arrested in Cairo on August 17, 2013, on charges of participating in a violent protest at Al-Fath Mosque in Cairo’s Ramses neighborhood, in the wake of large demonstrations protesting the military-backed ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

His sisters were released shortly thereafter, but Halawa was remanded in custody. Along with 493 other defendants, including another 11 minors, he faces charges ranging from protesting illegally and destroying public property to attacking security forces and committing murder.

The charges against him may carry the death penalty.

On the Facebook group Free Ibrahim Halawa, his lawyer and family have denied all these accusations, as well as any link between Halawa and the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The following day after the prison visit, the delegation met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo at the Ettehadiya Presidential Palace, where they discussed the case.

Ireland’s Parliament previously issued a motion in July 2016 calling on Egyptian authorities to release Halawa. However, Egyptian PMs subsequently denounced the Irish parliamentary vote, referring to it as an intervention in the affairs of Egypt and its judiciary.

However, in the meeting with Sisi on Wednesday, Murphy comments that it was the president who started the conversation about Halawa.

Murphy says that Sisi claimed that “if he had the power to, he would free Ibrahim,” adding that “he would do it in a second.”

The Irish TD explained that Sisi “emphasized the independence of the judiciary in Egypt,” saying that Halawa “must first be convicted by court, before he could do anything about it,” in reference to issuing him a presidential pardon.

Murphy points out that this statement “was a repetition of what he has said to our prime minister in the past: If I could, I would.”

Sisi “spoke of his presidential pardons and amnesty for youth detainees,” says Murphy, adding that the president pointed to the committee he had established to review lists of political detainees for potential release.

Murphy says that there is the possibility of a scenario similar to that of  Australian journalist Peter Greste, who was deported from Egypt in 2015, in light of Presidential Decree 140/2014 — a law that allows for the deportation of foreign nationals at any point during their prosecution or detention upon the request of their native countries.

Halawa “never had an Egyptian passport, and was born in Ireland,” Murphy explains, a fact which may potentially facilitate his deportation from Egypt upon Ireland’s request. Murphy adds that Halawa “recently signed a waiver form giving up his Egyptian citizenship, which may indicate that he could be deported.”

The Irish TD also spoke of his meeting with parliamentary speaker Ali Abdel Aal, “who emphasized that he would do everything that he could to have him released, adding that he would seek to expedite the judicial process” for Halawa’s trial.

According to Ireland’s state-owned RTÉ news service, the Egyptian government had invited the parliamentary delegation for the visit, “as it wants to normalize relations with Ireland.”

RTÉ reported that the Irish delegation was invited to “discuss parliamentary relations” and to “build stronger cooperation in areas such as agriculture, trade, and tourism.”

When asked if he thinks that this is a good time – in terms of the Egyptian government’s track record on democracy and human rights – to be normalizing relations with Egypt, Murphy replies, “Ibrahim’s case is just one of many issues of violations here. We have a duty to raise issues of human rights and democracy, along with the new NGO law, among others. We will be raising the issue of these violations with our counterparts in Egypt.”

In terms of other issues discussed, Murphy says that the Irish delegation communicated with Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture, “to follow up on the level of the food safety cooperation between both countries,” and the strengthening of bilateral trade links.

Murphy adds that the delegation also met with the heads of Egypt’s different parliamentary committees and agreed to establish cordial ties among Irish and Egyptian MPs in the future.

“We had been engaging in soft-diplomacy until now,” he says. “We hope that our visit will have some positive effect,” noting that the case is closely monitored in Ireland, thanks in large part to the campaign efforts of Halawa’s sisters.

International rights organizations Amnesty International and Reprieve have called for the release of Halawa, along with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the European Parliament, and the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

According to investigations conducted by Amnesty International, Halawa is “a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly.”

Supreme court upholds law restricting street protests

REUTERS
Egypt's top constitutional court upholds law restricting street protests

Sat Dec 3, 2016  

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court upheld on Saturday a law that effectively bans protests, settling a years-long court battle and protecting the law from further challenges.

The law was passed in 2013 amid persistent demonstrations calling for the reinstatement of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mursi after the military overthrew him following mass protests against his rule.

It requires would-be protesters to notify the interior ministry of any public gathering of more than 10 people at least three days in advance, imposes jail sentences of up to five years for those who violate a broad list of protest restrictions, and allows security forces to disperse illegal demonstrations with water cannons, tear gas and birdshot.

The court's ruling keeps all of these elements of the law intact and there is no further appeal.

Egyptian rights organizations have said the law criminalizes all forms of peaceful assembly and gives the state a free hand to disperse peaceful gatherings by force.

Its strict enforcement has largely succeeded in ending the kind of mass demonstrations that helped unseat two presidents in three years as activists who have held even small, peaceful gatherings were detained.

The ruling means that hundreds of protesters arrested under the law will remain in prison.

"It was a surprise. We were hoping that the constitutional court would come down on the side of rights. There isn't a court in Egypt that has mercy on the people," prominent human rights lawyer Gamal Eid told Reuters.

The case was first brought to an administrative court in 2014 when a group of lawyers challenged parts of the law they said violated article 73 of the constitution.

The article allows the "right to organize public meetings, marches, demonstrations and all forms of peaceful protest while not carrying weapons of any type, upon providing notification as regulated by law."

But the court ruled on Saturday that only article 10, which grants the interior ministry authority to deny protest requests, was unconstitutional.

It upheld three other articles being challenged, including one which requires protesters to submit detailed information on the location and purpose of their gatherings and another stipulating jail sentences and hefty fines for illegal demonstrations, which the law defines broadly.


*Reporting by Haitham Ahmed, Mostafa Hashem and Mohamed Abdellah; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Clelia Oziel

Egypt must end politicization of judiciary, ensure its independence & accountability

International Commission of Jurists

Egypt: authorities must end politicization of the judiciary and ensure its independence and accountability

October 12, 2016

 

The Egyptian authorities must end executive interference in judicial affairs and act to ensure that the judiciary is independent and that it serves to safeguard human rights and uphold the rule of law, the ICJ said today.


The statement came as the ICJ released its new report Egypt’s Judiciary: a Tool of Repression. Lack of Effective Guarantees of Independence and Impartiality.

The report documents the many ways in which the judiciary has been used as a tool to silence those suspected of opposing the Military and Executive.

This include prosecutors and judges initiating and continuing prosecutions on unfounded charges; adopting a presumption in favour of pre-trial detention; applying laws in violation of human rights standards and refusing to permit constitutional challenges to those laws; and failing to respect fundamental fair trial rights.

Convictions in Egypt are regularly based on poorly reasoned judgments and without individual findings of guilt.

“Egypt’s military and executive have subordinated the judiciary to their political will, making it a docile tool in their on-going, sustained crackdown on human rights in Egypt,” said Said Benarbia, ICJ MENA Director.

“In doing so, judges and prosecutors have abdicated their primary responsibility in upholding the rule of law. Rather than acting as a check on the arbitrary exercise of power, judges themselves have become complicit in violating the very rights they are mandated to protect,” he added.

Thousands of political opponents, human rights defenders, pro-democracy campaigners, journalists and individuals exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly have been subjected to politicized prosecutions and convicted following unfair trials.

The report also documents how the military and the executive’s crackdown has extended to lawyers and judges suspected of opposing the authorities, the very individuals who are supposed to be the last line of defence of rights and freedoms.

The ICJ has found that the structural and systemic politicization of the Egyptian judiciary has been facilitated, in part, by the failure of the legal framework in force to provide for the necessary guarantees for judicial independence and accountability.

The report analyses how the composition, mandate and actions of the High Judicial Council (HJC), have undermined its ability to ensure respect of judicial independence.

The institutional and functional subordination of the Office of the Public Prosecutor to the Executive has meant politicized prosecutions against perceived opposition figures, and a failure to investigate and prosecute alleged human rights violations by police and military personnel.

The report also document how the wide jurisdiction of military and exceptional courts as well as the limited access to the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) have contributed to further undermining judicial independence.

The report contains 136 recommendations to the Egyptian authorities aimed at guaranteeing, in law and practice, the independence and accountability of the judiciary in Egypt.


*Photo courtesy of AFP

Free Alaa! Free the 1,000s of other political prisoners in Egypt

FREE ALAA ABDEL FATTAH!!

London street art, in solidarity with the imprisoned Egyptian blogger & leftist activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. 

Alaa has spent 2.5 years in Cairo's Torah Prison - half of his five year prison sentence - for partaking in a non-violent protest, back in November 2013.

Alaa is just one of the tens of thousands of political prisoners who have languished in the jail cells of Dictator Sisi - for peacefully expressing their opinions, or for opposing the military dictatorship.

FREE ALAA! 
FREE THE THOUSANDS OF OTHER POLITICAL PRISONERS!

Deaths & serious systematic abuses in Egypt's 'Scorpion Prison'

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Egypt: Serious Abuses in Scorpion Prison

Inmates Isolated, Beaten, Denied Food and Medicine

September 28, 2016

Authorities at a maximum security prison in Cairo that holds many political prisoners routinely abuse inmates in ways that may have contributed to some of their deaths.

Staff at Scorpion Prison beat inmates severely, isolate them in cramped “discipline” cells, cut off access to families and lawyers, and interfere with medical treatment, according to the 80-page report, “‘We Are in Tombs’: Abuses in Egypt’s Scorpion Prison.”

The report documents cruel and inhuman treatment by officers of Egypt’s Interior Ministry that probably amounts to torture in some cases and violates basic international norms for the treatment of prisoners.

The abuse in Scorpion, where inmates are held in cells without beds or items for basic hygiene, has persisted with almost no oversight from prosecutors and other watchdogs, behind a wall of secrecy kept in place by the Interior Ministry.

“Scorpion Prison sits at the end of the state’s repressive pipeline, ensuring that political opponents are left with no voice and no hope,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Its purpose seems to be little more than a place to throw government critics and forget them.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 relatives of inmates held in Scorpion, two lawyers, and one former prisoner, and reviewed medical files and photos of sick and deceased prisoners.

Since July 2013, when Egypt’s military, led by then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Mohamed Morsy, the country’s first freely elected leader and a high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood member, the Egyptian authorities have engaged in one of the widest arrest campaigns in the country’s modern history, targeting a broad spectrum of political opponents.

Relatives said that conditions in Scorpion deteriorated drastically in March 2015, when al-Sisi, who was elected president in 2014, appointed Magdy Abd al-Ghaffar as interior minister. Between March and August 2015, Interior Ministry officials banned all visits by families and lawyers, essentially cutting off the prison from the outside world.

The ban prevented families from delivering much-needed food and medicine otherwise unavailable in the prison – where there is no hospital or regular visits from a doctor – and amounted to what relatives described as a “starvation” policy that left inmates sick and gaunt.

Between May and October 2015, at least six Scorpion inmates died in custody. Three of their families agreed to speak with Human Rights Watch. Two of the men had been diagnosed with cancer and one with diabetes. Their relatives said that the authorities prevented the men from receiving timely treatment or medicine deliveries, refused to consider conditionally releasing them on medical grounds, and failed to investigate their deaths.

In one case, Interior Ministry authorities refused to provide Essam Derbala, a high-ranking member of al-Gama`a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group), with his prescription diabetes medicine, despite orders from a judge and prosecutor, Derbala’s brother and lawyer said.

The authorities refused even after Derbala appeared at an August 2015 court hearing shaking, semi-conscious, and unable to control his urination. Derbala died hours after the hearing.

Another inmate, Farid Ismail, a former member of parliament for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, suffered from Hepatitis C and died in May 2015, after passing out in a hepatic coma inside the prison.

Aisha al-Shater, the daughter of Muslim Brotherhood deputy supreme guide Khairat al-Shater, said that when Ismail failed to answer a daily roll call devised by her father and others in the cellblock during a period when they were confined to their cells, they told the guards, who responded that it was “none of their business.” The next day, guards discovered Ismail unconscious in his cell. He died in an outside hospital about a week later.

“Afterward, even calling to each other was prohibited,” Aisha al-Shater said. “So right now, they say, ‘We are in tombs. We’re living, but we are in tombs.’”

Since the months-long visit ban in 2015, authorities at Scorpion have continued to arbitrarily ban inmates from meeting their families or lawyers for weeks or months. They do not allow inmates to meet privately with their lawyers at any time. Officers, including some high-ranking Interior Ministry officials, have beaten and threatened inmates who went on hunger strike to protest conditions and humiliated and mistreated prominent prisoners during cell searches.

Between Morsy’s overthrow and May 2014, Egyptian authorities arrested or charged at least 41,000 people, according to one documented count, and 26,000 more may have been arrested since the beginning of 2015, lawyers and human rights researchers say. The government has admitted to making nearly 34,000 arrests.

While detainees at other prisons in Egypt have alleged serious abuses, Scorpion has emerged, not for the first time in its history, as the central site for those deemed the most dangerous enemies of the state.

Constructed in 1993 and officially known as Tora Maximum Security Prison, Scorpion was intended to hold “preventive detainees in state security cases,” according to the decree that established the prison.

“It was designed so that those who go in don’t come out again unless dead,” Major General Ibrahim Abd al-Ghaffar, a former Scorpion warden, said during a television interview in 2012. “It was designed for political prisoners.”

The National Security Agency of the Interior Ministry, then known as State Security Investigations, effectively ran Scorpion with extrajudicial authority, ignoring scores of court orders to lift arbitrary bans on access.

Today, little seems to have changed in Scorpion, which holds about 1,000 prisoners, relatives estimate. They include most of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top leadership, alleged members of the Islamic State extremist group, and various critics of al-Sisi’s government, including journalists and doctors.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry should immediately end arbitrary visit bans, ensure regular access to doctors and medical treatment, and provide prisoners with minimum necessities for hygiene and comfort. The Egyptian government should allow international detention monitors to visit Scorpion, and form an independent national committee with the authority to make snap visits to prisons and other detention sites and submit complaints to a special prosecutor.

The Egyptian public prosecution should investigate deaths in custody and charge those with command responsibility for Scorpion in connection with any acts of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment.

“Egypt’s detention system is overflowing with critics of the government,” Stork said. “Ending the abuses at Scorpion is a small step toward improving dire conditions across the country.”