HRW says torture in Egypt likely ‘crime against humanity’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch in a report released yesterday accused Egyptian security services of widespread torture of detainees in a probable ‘crime against humanity’.

The New York-based rights group said security services in the North African country used torture as a ‘systematic practice’ against suspected opponents of the government.

Rights groups have regularly accused Egyptian security services of practising torture, something the interior ministry has denied.

The government has acknowledged there have been ‘individual’ cases of torture, and several policemen have been tried and sentenced for violent deaths in detention in recent years.

“Human Rights Watch believes the torture epidemic in Egypt likely constitutes a crime against humanity, due to its widespread and systematic practice across Egypt,” the group said in the report.

It said it had interviewed 19 former detainees who detailed the methods of torture, which include electrocution.

Police also handcuffed suspects and suspended them by their arms.

In another “position, called the ‘chicken’ or ‘grill’, officers placed a stick or bar behind the suspects’ knees, wrapped their arms around the bar from the other side so that the bar laid between the crook of their elbows and the back of their knees, and tied their hands together above their shins to secure them in the position,” the report said.

The bar was then lifted, placing the suspects in a position ‘resembling a chicken on a rotisserie spit’.

The report quoted a former detainee alleging police ‘repeatedly raped’ him with a stick.

Police abuses fuelled a 2011 uprising that unseated veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak and ushered in years of political instability. — AFP