Egypt’s president accused of endorsing police torture
CAIRO — An international rights group says Egyptian President Abdel-fattah el-sissi has given a “green light” to systematic torture inside detention facilities, allowing officers to act with “almost total impunity.”
In a 63-page report released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch says el-sissi, a U.S. ally who was warmly received at the White House earlier this year, is pursuing stability “at any cost” and has allowed the widespread torture of detainees despite it being outlawed by the Egyptian constitution.
El-sissi “has effectively given police and National Security officers a green light to use torture whenever they please,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at the New York-based group. “Impunity for the systematic use of torture has leftcitizens with no hope for justice.”
The allegations, the group said, amount to crimes against humanity.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry slammed the report in a statement later on Wednesday, saying it’s full of inaccuracies and undermines the sovereignty of the state and the role of its national institutions.
Most of the detainees are alleged supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood group, which rose to power after the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak but has been the target of a sweeping crackdown since the military overthrew Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
Human Rights Watch says Egypt arrested or charged 60,000 people in the two years after Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader who became Egypt’s first freely elected president, was overthrown following a divisive year in power. Hundreds have gone missing in what appear to be forced disappearances, and hundreds of others have received preliminary death sentences.
Widespread torture in a perceived climate of impunity was one of the main grievances behind the uprising that toppled Mubarak. Stork warned that “allowing the security services to commit this heinous crime across the country invites another cycle of unrest.”
President Donald Trump has hailed el-sissi as an ally against terrorism, but last month the United States cut or delayed nearly $300 million in military and economic aid,.
Based on interviews with 19 Egyptians detained as far back as 2013, the rights group documented abuses ranging from beatings to rape and sodomy.
Human Rights Watch says it found identical methods of torture used in detention facilities across the country, an “assembly line of serious abuse.”
After a “welcoming party” of beatings, detainees are stripped naked, blindfolded and subjected to electrical shocks and various stress positions.