Tag: Human rights

Finally!!!! Gitmo detainees to get Geneva Conventions protection

The US has admitted that all detainees held by the military, including those at Guantanamo, should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Aywa! Finally! This is great news! Really great!… Let’s hope the Gulag would be shut down soon, and the illegal renditions to end…
Check this funny animation I found on zazou’s blog.

Related Links and Resources:
Rights groups hail Guantanamo ruling

HRW on Counterterrorism

When torture rules

Gamal 3eid–one of Sharqawi’s lawyers, and director of HRinfo–reflected on Sharqawi’s case in a very moving statement.

Mohammed El-Sharkawi is proof of the crime of Mubarak’s regime
“It’s either me or the Muslim Brotherhood… I might not be the best but I am the best of what is available… My alternative is another Algeria … the alternative are the Islamists”
The regime in Egypt used this statement at its best for many long years to extort not only the West but also many secularists and leftists here and there making this statement its justification whenever someone complained of brutal police practices against political activists. This statement is raised before the “democratic” west as if the regime in Egypt has to be oppressive to secure Western interests and maintain a civil state and protect it from the threat of Islamists.There are nearly 15 thousand political prisoners in Egyptian prisons. Many are co-opting against them as the justification is ready and logical. They are extremist Islamists. Who cares about them? Continue reading When torture rules

Sharqawi receives death threats in Tora

I have received troubling news from activist sources that Youth for Change detainee Mohamed el-Sharqawi has been subject to death threats in Tora prison, where he’s currently detained.

3alaa has posted on his blog some details about Sharqawi’s current ordeal.

Here’s an English translation:
Mohamed Sharqawi is subject to death threats from the police informer who supervises his prison cell at Mahkoum Tora Prison. Sharqawi has been banned from leaving his cell, unlike other prisoners. He was also told by a State Security informer in prison that “we can get rid of you by a dirty needle in the bathroom that will infect you with any lethal disease.� Sharqawi is increasingly coming under abusive treatment since the release of Kefaya detainees. He’s been separated from Karim el-Sha3er since they received another renewal of their detention.

Sharqawi said during a prison visit on 10 July, “I’ve been subjet to hassles from some criminals, motivated by the police officers. One of the criminals who sympathized with me was also punished, in a warning message to anyone who helps or sympathizes with me.�

Parliament endorses new press law

The NDP-controlled parliament has passed the govt’s new press law few minutes ago.

I still don’t have details. But it seems, due to pressure from journalists and activists, Mubarak “stepped in” to cancel the proposed article that imprisons journalists who criticize “government officials’ financial integrety.” It seems, however, the HUGE fine that was to accompany the imprisonment is still there in the new law.

I’m going out now, but will try to update the post later in the day.

UPDATE: Here’s a Reuters report on the new “tough press law.”
The law, even with Mubarak’s “last-minute intervention,” is abusive and horrible. With this new press law, and the Administrative Court’s ruling in favor of blocking blogs that “threaten national security”–one can expect The Arabist contributors to join Sharqawi soon in Tora inshallah…

ما تننسوش العيش والحلاوة

“Obedience is starting to evaporate”

An American prof’s impression of what is happening in Cairo now. Please read:
Darkness on the Edge of Cairo
by John William Salevurakis
Every day I walk from my fashionable neighborhood to the university and pass a pair of very kind, white-uniformed police officers. They stand in their almost blindingly clean attire, only a block from my crumbling apartment building, smoking Egypt’s cheapest Cleopatra cigarettes and directing traffic. “Ya Pasha!” they shout, “Habibi!” This is my daily greeting as I pass and kiss each of them on both cheeks. Since I came here from Utah nearly two years ago, I have been “a ruler” and their “dearest one” nearly every day. I don’t smoke but they commonly offer me a cigarette so I will take the time to uneasily chat in my pidgin Arabic. We talk about mundane things like the summer heat or when I’ll again be visiting America or Europe. In Cairo, the mundane is really of immense value as a symbol. It is a social ritual, it seems, representing calm and a certain degree of material prosperity, a sign that one can afford to be concerned about such things pertaining to one’s self and others. With regularity, however, the calm is now broken on the edges of Cairo, and the darkness, fueled jointly by domestic and foreign powers, is creeping in from the edges of town. Everybody’s got a secret, it seems.
On May 25th, Karim Al-Shaer and Mohammed Al-Sharkawy were arrested at a local protest and taken to the Kasr El Nil police station near my apartment. They were beaten and tortured, and Al-Sharkawy was sexually abused, and then turned over to State Security Forces, at which point their long-term futures became even more uncertain. The two were then allegedly denied medical care and remanded to the Tora Prison for a minimum of 15 days under Egypt’s widely criticized yet strikingly familiar “Emergency Laws” which have been in place, almost without interruption, for the last 38 years. A second protest on June 2nd (Correction: actually it was June 1st) saw the detainment of three Egyptians and an L.A. Times reporter who also had his camera smashed by police in front of the Kasr El Nil station. It was loudly and repeatedly noted by security: “There’s no permit for a protest today for the demonstrators. There is no permit for the coverage by reporters!” Historically, no one has asked any questions when faced with statements such as these . . . but that obedience is starting to evaporate. Continue reading “Obedience is starting to evaporate”

26 newspapers to go on strike tomorrow

The number of independent and opposition publications that will go on strike tomorrow, in protest of the new press law the Egyptian regime has proposed, has risen to 26.
A national boycott of state-owned publications has been called for by activists, who are to demonstrate in front of the parliament 11am tomorrow.

Correction: There’s confusion around the number of strikers. While the statement says 26, other media reports say 25. I’m gonna confirm the number as soon as I can. Sorry about that…

AI fears abusive govt powers in new “anti-terror law”

Amnesty International issued a statement Friday expressing concerns over the govt’s new “anti-terror law” currently in the making.
One of Mubarak’s promises during his “electoral campaignâ€� last year was the abolishing of the notorious Emergency Law, with which he ruled Egypt since 1981, and replace it with an “anti-terror law.â€� The Emergency law is regarded as the Grim Reaper in the nation’s political scene. It gives the government abusive powers to lock any suspect for 6 months, break demonstrations, and stiffle political life. Though the government claims it’s only used against “terrorists and drug dealers,” it’s clear who is the law used against: Sharqawi, Sha3er, 3alaa, Ibrahim, Kamal, Wael, and hundreds of other activists from the movement for change, as well as thousands of detainees who are languishing in prisons since 1981, and millions of Egyptians in their daily life encounters with the Egyptian police.
Of course, as we know, our president’s promise went with the wind (together with few others) as the NDP-controlled parliament voted last April to extend the law for another two years, fearing a “legal vacuum if the emergency law is abolished nowâ€� as Mubarak put it.
Now that the regime’s legal experts are well cooking the new anti-terror law, Amnesty International echoed the fears expressed by Egyptian rights activists and opposition group in a statement and memorandum sent to Mubarak.

Police ban another pro-Gaza demo

It seems the demo that some bloggers tried to hold Friday in front of the Israeli embassy in Giza, never materialized.
The blogger who issued the initial call for the demo, Asad, wrote an account of what happened. It’s in Arabic, so to cut a long story short: some people showed up, but did not dare to start a demo due to the massive security presence. Asad reports there were thousands of CSF troops and State Security agents, who banned anyone from assembling or approaching the Nahdet Masr statue, that was announced to be the meeting point. The Friday ban comes after police agents banned a demo in solidarity with Gaza last Wednesday.