UN experts: Morsi’s death an arbitrary killing
THOUGH the stinging report may be dismissed by the coup leader General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi who ousted and jailed Mohamed Morsi, it is nevertheless a welcome respite for thousands of detainees and Egypt’s pro-democracy movement.
Not only do the panel of independent UN experts throw the spotlight on the inhumane detention conditions which led to Morsi’s death, they also castigate the Sisi regime’s lack of accountability. It certainly will cast a long shadow over the AU’s failure to be faithful to its anti-coup and human rights policies. Ironically the AU, which ought to represent and defend democratic values, is headed by Sisi. The army chief now donning cosmetic “changes” as president of Egypt and the AU, is directly implicated in the death in detention of Morsi.
Details of the UN’s findings have been disclosed by various media outlets, including the “Middle East Eye”.
They reveal that the high-powered panel of UN experts – including Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extra judicial, summary or arbitrary executions – and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, was held under “brutal” conditions. “Dr Morsi was held in conditions that can only be described as brutal, particularly during his five-year detention in the Tora prison complex,” the experts wrote.
“Dr Morsi’s death after enduring those conditions could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing.”
It confirms the fears and concerns of human rights groups, media and family members of detainees.
“Dr Morsi was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day,” the experts wrote. “He was not allowed to see other prisoners, even during the one hour a day when he was permitted to exercise. He was forced to sleep on a concrete floor with only one or two blankets for protection. He was not allowed access to books, journals, writing materials or a radio. Dr Morsi was denied life-saving and ongoing care for his diabetes and high blood pressure.
“He progressively lost the vision in his left eye, had recurrent diabetic comas and fainted repeatedly.”
Among the demands listed by the UN panel of experts are an end to state-sponsored practices that violate “the right to life, the right not to be subjected to arbitrary detention, the right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment, the right to due process and a fair trial, and adequate medical care”.
Given that the Sisi regime is viewed as an American asset, is allied to Israel’s colonial project and is linked to Saudi Arabia’s geo-political ambitions, the prospect of it adhering to any of the UN’s demands are slim.
This is borne out by the fact that Morsi’s ousting via a bloody military coup was engineered and funded by the same three rogue regimes. And concurrently, while pro-democracy activists in Egypt were mowed down during the Rabaa massacres, the international community stood by in silence. The imposition of Sisi as Egypt’s modern-day Pharoah has been a nightmare not only for human rights activists, journalists, civil society movements and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood; but also for Palestinians under siege in Occupied Gaza.
While ostensibly playing a mediating role, Sisi’s actions on the ground especially his inhumane restrictive policy of maintaining long periods of closure of the Rafah border, have fulfilled Israeli expectations, not Palestinian aspirations. Now that the UN panel has spoken, it is left to be seen whether the AU and its constituent members, especially South Africa, will endorse and support its list of just demands. Thousands of political detainees and tortured victims of Sisi’s brutal reign are waiting for a just end to their suffering on cold concrete floors in solitary confinement without medical care.