Demonstration planned in front of Qasr el-Nil police station

The Hisham Mubarak Law Center has called for a demonstration in front of Qasr el-Nil Police Station, (located in Garden City, downtown Cairo) on Thursday, 5pm, to protest the torture of Mohamed el-Sharqawi and Karim el-Sha3er, the two Youth for Change activists.

The announcement came during a press conference held by the Liberties’ Committee at the Cairo Lawyer’s Syndicate Saturday, where Kefaya leaders and rights lawyers denounced the recent arrest and torture of democracy activists. Moreover, they called on the General Prosecutor to open an investigation into the incident, accusing the State Security Prosecutor’s office of complicity with State Security police, by stalling Sharqawi’s medical examination, in an effort to conceal as much possible of the torture marks on his body.

Muslim Brotherhood activist, Mohamed Abdel Qoddous, also announced the postponement of Tuesday’s protest at the Doctors’ syndicate to Thursday, 7pm.

Letter from Sharqawi

Mohamed el-Sharqawi has sent a testimony on his arrest and torture, from Tora Prison.

Here’s the English translation of it:

A Letter from Mohamed el-Sharqawi

Kidnapped on 25 May, Currently in Cell 8-1, Mahkoum Tora

How I was kidnapped, beaten and tortured for eight hours?

I went through many moments of fear and horror in my life, but nothing was like those I went through after I left the Press Syndicate on 25 May, 2006, around 6pm. I got into one of my colleagues’ car, to take a ride to the train station, so as to catch the train to Alexandria. I wanted to see my family, after a period by no means short—30 days—behind bars in Tora Prison.

The car stopped at the traffic light of Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St. crossing Talaat Harb St. I wasn’t paying attention, till my colleague screamed, “Who are those?!� I looked around me, and behind the windows there were tens of men in plain clothes trying to open the door. I could only think of one thing in few seconds… State Security personnel had come to kidnap me… I threw whatever I was carrying in the car, and opened the door, only to be met with a violent push into the entrance of the last building on Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St., before it crosses Talaat Harb St.

The fiesta started. They introduced themselves to me by their swift fists, till one of them kicked me to the floor. There was about 20 persons or more. Their punches and kicks came one after the other, and without much planning, which led them to kick one another, because they were all keen to do anything that props them up in front of their bosses. I could not recognize any of the faces, but three. I had seen them before several times in demos. Continue reading Letter from Sharqawi

Statement by the Tora detainees

Statement by Detainees in Tora Prison

Released 27 May 2006

We, the detained in Tora Prison, charged of insulting the president and blocking the traffic, condemn police violence, the kidnap and torture of our colleagues Mohamed el-Sharkawy and Karim el-Sha’er, and condemn the complicity of the Regime Security Prosecution (formerly known as State Security Prosecution).

 

The regime has now two agents of torture: the State Security police and the State Security prosecution, which is the regime’s tool in oppressing and torturing the opposition, which has previously closed the files of all torture cases, and which has blocked the examination of Mohamed el-Sharakawy by forensic medicine in the hope that the signs of torture would resolve.

The regime’s resort to thuggery is evidence of its weakness, and shows how close we are to the day when we rid ourselves from it, the day of Egypt’s liberation. Our continued detention proves the regime’s fear and terror of people’s opposition to its corruption, dictatorship and its systematic destruction of the country.

We announce the beginning of an open escalating hunger strike until our demands are met:

1. Examination of our colleagues by forensic medicine

2. Investigation into the kidnap and torture of our colleagues, bringing State Security officers involved to justice and exposure of the complicity of the prosecution and its crime of closing torture cases and refusing forensic medical examination of the injured.

3. Release of all detainees in the solidarity movement with the judiciary.

 

Together, until torture criminals are brought to justice

List of strikers on the 1st day: Kamal Khalil, Saher Gad, Ahmed Abdel Gawad, Karim Mohamed Reda, Ihab Mohamed Idris, and Sameh Said

List of strikers on the 2nd day: Ahmed Maher and Nael Abdel Hamid

Hunger Strike organizing committee: Gamal Abdel Fattah, Wael Khalil, Ibrahim el-Sahary

Egyptian detainees are starting a hunger strike

I was contacted by one of the detainees’ wife, who called me this afternoon to say the incarcerated activists will start a hunger strike as the clock strikes midnight today, demanding: a) the examination of Mohamed el-Sharqawi and Kareem al-Sha’er by the Forensics Medical Authorities, b) an investigation into the torture and abuse incidents the two Youth for Change activists were subject to last Thursday, c) the release of all those detained for their solidarity with the judges.

The six detainees who will start the strike are:

1-Kamal Khalil

2-Saher Gad

3-Ahmad Abdel Gawad

4-Karim Mohamed Redda

5-Ihab Mohamed Idriss

6-Sameh Mohamed Said

Two other detainees will join the strike in 48 hours: Nael and Ahmad Maher.

Gamal Abdel Aziz Eid, the director of the Arab Human Rights Information Network who is representing the detainees, confirmed to me Sharqawi and Sha’er have not been medically examined up till now. Eid’s organization, together with four other rights watchdogs, have issued a statement today calling on the interior ministry to investigate the recent arrests and abuses, and accusing the State Security Prosecutor’s office of “complicity� in leaving those who conduct torture to go unpunished.   

On another front, I was told the Press Syndicate refused to host the Liberties’ Committee press conference scheduled for Sunday. Instead, the press conference has been moved to the Lawyers’ Syndicate, and will be held, tomorrow Sunday, at 1:30pm.

Kefaya demo in South Korea!

Forget about Cairo’s Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St. where people are increasingly getting into the bad habbit of “disappearing.” Once again, Kefaya strikes in Seoul..

Socialist activists in South Korea held a demo in front of the Egyptian embassy in Seoul, supporting the Egyptian judges and denouncing the crackdown on pro-reform activists.

Last March, President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea paid Hosni Mubarak a visit in Cairo, where they discussed economic cooperation. My instinct tells me, Moo-hyun was also advised on the use of Korean baltaggiyas against Kefaya demonstrators in Seoul, after the Egyptian experiment proved to be a success by all international standards.

Events planned in solidarity with the Cairo detainees

Activists in Cairo are planning events this week in solidarity with the detainees, and to protest the sexual assault on Youth for Change activist Mohamed el-Sharqawi last Thursday, in Qasr el-Nil Police Station.

A press conference by the Liberties Committee (Lagnet el-Hurriyat) will be held at the Press Syndicate on Sunday, 5:30pm.

There will be also a one-hour stand by activists in front of the Doctors’ Syndicate, Dar el-Hekma, in Qasr el-Eini St. on Tuesday 7pm, followed by a conference inside the syndicate.

Sexual abuse as a tool against dissidents

It’s not the first time that Egyptian police rape people they arrest — it happened several times a few years ago when the security services were conducting a pogrom against homosexuals. But the sheer barbarity of using sticks to sodomize dissidents (a claim now verified by several rights activists) tells you a lot about the nature of this regime and how it has gotten completely out of control. Here’s a statement from a Kifaya on the matter:

A horrid torture festival in the Mubaraks’ Abu Ghraib
Torture and Sodomizing

A new crime reveals Mubarak Jr’s “New Thought” to continue his father’s approach and to revive the memory of sexually attacking Egyptian women during last year’s constitutional referendum that was enacted to extend the Mubarak dictatorship. State Security officers sodomized Mohammed El-Sharkawi, a young activist, using rolled cartoon paper for nearly 15 minutes. They tore his underwear and threatened to rape him. This came as part of the horrid torture festival that Karim Al-Shae’r, another activist, was exposed to in Kasr El Nil Police Station.

This is the peak of the crime that was recorded during interrogations in the State Security Prosecutor Bureau in Misr Al-Gadida. The crime started when they dragged El-Sharkawi on the ground from Ma’rouf st. to the entrance of a building at the cross road of Ma’rouf and Talat Harb streets, where he was brutally beaten. Lawyers who have seen him recalled torture perpetrated against Islamists. Afterwards, El-Sharkawi was blindfolded and taken in a blue microbus to what is thought to be Kasr El Nil Police Station where he was detained for 24 hours. There he was exposed to more torture.

According to lawyers, there is nearly no area on El-Sharkawi’s body that is void of bruises, swells, or injury. This insinuates as stated by the lawyer and human rights activist, Gamal Eid, that the torture was perpetrated with extreme “spitefulness”.

A few minutes after El-Sharkawi was kidnapped, State Security officers were dragging journalist Jihan Shaaban on the ground simply because she was accompanying Karim Al-Sha’er, each going to their home. Dina Samak and Dina Gameel were also dragged on the ground because they were present there. Dina Samak was injured and bruised. The fact that she is six months pregnant did not act as a deterrent to such attacks.

No respect to women and no respect to pregnant women is the slogan of the father and the son. No respect to honor. Both sexes are treated equally when it comes to sexual and physical assaults. Lawyers could not maintain their calmness when they saw the beastly marks of torture all over the activists’ bodies. It was as if they were in Abu Ghraib-Mubarak.

According to the activists, the torture festival lasted for four hours before news spread that they are on their way to the prosecutor where the crime of the Mubarak Sr. and Jr. was revealed at around 11:30 pm.

The audacity of Mubarak’s regime will not stop. It has found the boldness to harass lawyers and attempt to stop them from attending interrogations. After a verbal quarrel, authorities agreed for one lawyer to attend, then two, then three.

Before the prosecutor, El-Shrakawi and Al-Sha’er insisted that the torture that they have been exposed to should be registered in the interrogation files. They refused to make any statements until they are put before a delegated investigative judge. They demanded that they are sent to the forensic department. Until 1:00 a.m. the prosecutor continued to interrogate them, to decided, at the end, to detain the two activists for 15 days. They are accused of violating emergency law codes that prohibits more than five persons assembling. The prosecutor ordered that they are sent to the forensic department, if possible. This means that we will have to wait until Saturday at the least.

The prosecutor refused to allow a doctor who volunteered to make first aid treatment. There are doubts that El-Sharkawi’s ribs are broken. The prosecutor also refused to transfer them to a hospital for treatment.

For a comprehensive coverage of Thursday’s event:
Torture and Sodomizing

A new crime reveals Mubarak Jr’s “New Thought” to continue his father’s approach and to revive the memory of sexually attacking Egyptian women during last year’s constitutional referendum that was enacted to extend the Mubarak dictatorship. State Security officers sodomized Mohammed El-Sharkawi, a young activist, using rolled cartoon paper for nearly 15 minutes. They tore his underwear and threatened to rape him. This came as part of the horrid torture festival that Karim Al-Shae’r, another activist, was exposed to in Kasr El Nil Police Station.

This is the peak of the crime that was recorded during interrogations in the State Security Prosecutor Bureau in Misr Al-Gadida. The crime started when they dragged El-Sharkawi on the ground from Ma’rouf st. to the entrance of a building at the cross road of Ma’rouf and Talat Harb streets, where he was brutally beaten. Lawyers who have seen him recalled torture perpetrated against Islamists. Afterwards, El-Sharkawi was blindfolded and taken in a blue microbus to what is thought to be Kasr El Nil Police Station where he was detained for 24 hours. There he was exposed to more torture.

According to lawyers, there is nearly no area on El-Sharkawi’s body that is void of bruises, swells, or injury. This insinuates as stated by the lawyer and human rights activist, Gamal Eid, that the torture was perpetrated with extreme “spitefulness”.

A few minutes after El-Sharkawi was kidnapped, State Security officers were dragging journalist Jihan Shaaban on the ground simply because she was accompanying Karim Al-Sha’er, each going to their home. Dina Samak and Dina Gameel were also dragged on the ground because they were present there. Dina Samak was injured and bruised. The fact that she is six months pregnant did not act as a deterrent to such attacks.

No respect to women and no respect to pregnant women is the slogan of the father and the son. No respect to honor. Both sexes are treated equally when it comes to sexual and physical assaults. Lawyers could not maintain their calmness when they saw the beastly marks of torture all over the activists’ bodies. It was as if they were in Abu Ghraib-Mubarak.

According to the activists, the torture festival lasted for four hours before news spread that they are on their way to the prosecutor where the crime of the Mubarak Sr. and Jr. was revealed at around 11:30 pm.

The audacity of Mubarak’s regime will not stop. It has found the boldness to harass lawyers and attempt to stop them from attending interrogations. After a verbal quarrel, authorities agreed for one lawyer to attend, then two, then three.

Before the prosecutor, El-Shrakawi and Al-Sha’er insisted that the torture that they have been exposed to should be registered in the interrogation files. They refused to make any statements until they are put before a delegated investigative judge. They demanded that they are sent to the forensic department. Until 1:00 a.m. the prosecutor continued to interrogate them, to decided, at the end, to detain the two activists for 15 days. They are accused of violating emergency law codes that prohibits more than five persons assembling. The prosecutor ordered that they are sent to the forensic department, if possible. This means that we will have to wait until Saturday at the least.

The prosecutor refused to allow a doctor who volunteered to make first aid treatment. There are doubts that El-Sharkawi’s ribs are broken. The prosecutor also refused to transfer them to a hospital for treatment.

Here’s a picture of Sharqawi from a recent demo:

Img 2280

Impressions from Washington

Sumita Pahwa, one of the organizers of the Washington, DC, 25 May demo, writes about the day:

Ustaz Ibrahim and I got there a bit early to set things up, and within a few minutes there were two police-type cars there, which read “United States Secret Service – Uniformed Division” and the cops asked us what we were protesting about. Then a few minutes later a State Department security/secret service guy came up, introduced himself and asked lots of questions about why we were protesting, chatted about the time he had spent in the Middle East, and mentioned that the Embassy was “concerned” about our protest. He asked us to stay within a small perimeter and said that they didn’t want to create an uncomfortable situation because the Egyptian government provided a lot of security for the American embassy in Cairo so out of reciprocity and courtesy they had to address the Egyptian security demands in Washington…Ibrahim quipped that it was already starting to look like a Cairo rally, with more security than protestors present. There were official and security type Egyptian men coming up near the entrance and chatting and looking at us. Perhaps they were a bit flustered to not have their reassuring rows of amn al-markazi there.

Continue reading Impressions from Washington

Droubi released!

Finally some good news for a change…..

Youth for Change activist, Ahmad Yasser el-Droubi, was released today. Droubi was among the first group of pro-judges activists to be arrested last April, and spent his prison time in Tora. The State Security prosecutor has decided to release him, based oh his medical conditions. Droubi is diabetic, and his health was deteriorating in detention.
I spoke with Droubi over the phone. He’s home with his family, and in high spirits, looking forward to meet all of his friends and fellow activists.

I thought of sharing the happy news with you, as there was nothing good coming out of Cairo for sometime.

Mabrouk ya shabab!

Egyptian Police Sexually Abuses Pro-Democracy Detainee

The two Youth for Change activists, Mohamed el-Sharqawi and Karim el-Sha’er, arrested yesterday by plain clothes security, were brutally tortured and sexually abused, say their lawyers and fellow activists who managed to see the two last night at the State Security Prosecutor’s office.

Sharqawi was kidnapped, according to accounts by lawyers and activists as he was leaving the Press Syndicate on Thursday afternoon, roughly 5pm. Plainclothes security agents and thugs grabbed Sharqawi in Abdel Khaleq Tharwat St., beat him, and shoved him in a car, which took him to the Qasr el-Nil Police Station. Shortly after, his fellow activist Karim el-Sha’er was leaving the syndicate in the private car of Dina Samak, a six-month pregnant journalist with the BBC, and the wife of Ibrahim el-Sahary, a leftist activist who’s currently locked up in Tora prison with other pro-democracy activists.

Dina Samak called me last night, in a state of total shock and trauma, to say her car, was followed by a taxi, as soon as she got out the syndicate’s garage. The taxi cut the road in front of her. Plainclothes security came out it, and were joined by others thugs standing by. They started hitting Dina’s car till they smashed the windows, dragged Sha’er out of it with a doze of beatings. There were other journalists too in the car, Jihan Shaaban, Ahmad Salah and Dina Gameel. All were assaulted. Samak was taken to the Judges’ Club for medical aid. “They (security) have reached such a low level, that I feel we are cattle, not human beings,� Dina told me. “The sexual abuse, the torture, the detentions won’t stop us from overthrowing this rotten regime.�

[You can get pictures of the attack on Wael Abass’s website. He also recorded a video testimony (in Arabic) with Dina and Jihan.]

Sha’er was shoved in a car and taken to Qasr el-Nil Police Station, where he and Sharqawi were blindfolded and handcuffed. They were brutally tortured, according to their lawyers. Sharqawi was also sodomized according to the lawyers and Kefaya statement. Later they were taken to the State Security Prosecutor’s office in Heliopolis. Those who saw them last night, including leftist activist Salma Said, told me the two boys were “bruised, in total shambles. There is not a single place in their bodies which does not have a red or blue mark.�

I spoke with the activists’ lawyer who managed to see them finally in the night, after initial refusal of legal access by the prosecutor. The boys refused to be interrogated, and requested to be transferred to a hospital and to be examined by the Forensic Medical Authorities to prove the torture. The prosecutor refused to transfer them to a hospital, refused to allow a woman doctor who was with the lawyer to provide medical aid for them, and ruled the two boys were to remain in police custody for 15 days. They were taken to Tora Prison, where other pro-democracy detainees are incarcerated. The request for examination by the Forensic Medical Authorites, if granted, won’t happen before Saturday, since today Friday is the official weekend holiday in Egypt.