Tag: Human rights

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.

Tunisia Ejects Amnesty International Representative

Those nasty, nasty little thugs that run Tunisia have thrown out Yves Steiner, an Amnesty International Representative who was attending a meeting in Tunis. Surely the least of their crimes, but worth highlighting.

But of course you would never read about it in Jeune Afrique, whose cover last week was a special on Dracula Ben Ali’s wonderful plans for the next decade.

The Empire Attacking Academic Freedom

Today’s Guadian Reports that the Tariq Ramadan saga in the States is ending. Ramadan, swiss citizen and grand-son of Egyptian MB founder Hassan al-Banna, is one of Europe’s most important Islamist thinkers. He won joint- appointments at Notre Dame last spring to teach Islamic studies and religion, conflict, and peace-building. A week before arriving Stateside in August, Homeland Security revoked his visa because of a security threat which was neither disclosed nor clarified.
Despite attempts, including petitions signed by the most prominent of US academics working on the ME, the government chose to say and do nothing.

Yesterday it more or less ended with Ramadan resigning his appointments at Notre Dame.

There is a direct and aggressive assault on thought on behalf of the American Empire. The last MESA presidential address by Laurie Brand at the San Franscisco meeting in November cogently argued such a line. When it is published on the web, it will be posted.

Academics, intellectals, and thinkers have for centuries struggled with various types of governments about their ideas. Now the world’s latest Empire has joined the rather poor company of governments that oppose intellectuals.

After 9/11 there was a moment to deepen understanding, spread lines of inquiry, and increase integration. The Bush administration missed the chance by opting for the conservative more long-term detrimental route. Shame on them.

Some of my Egyptian friends happily rushed to say that “America is not allowing Tariq Ramadan to teach there” so as to flaunt the US mistake last fall. Unfortunately, a fact not revealed in the Egyptian press is that Ramadan has not been allowed into Egypt since 1995.
The sad part is that I bet a high majority of Americans do not even know this is going on. Oh….the empire does not have to disclose what is not happening.

It is ok though – these is an ebb in government-intellectual relations. Academic disciplines will continue. Thankfully, hard-working, serious thinkers that push the envelop would not have it any other way….from where ever they find the space and tolerance to practice their trade.

Keep thinking…it pisses them off.

“The dogs of Ibn Saud”

In what I assume is a response to Monday’s broadcast on Saudi television about the five star treatment inside Saudi penitentiaries, I found this statement on a Saudi Islamist message board today. It is purportedly from prisoners in Alisha Prison in Saudi Arabia, and was posted to Al Qalaa Web site by a group or an individual, called “The Beast of the Peninsula” (Wihish Al Gezira). Here is a partial and very rough translation of their complaints about the conditions inside a Saudi prison, which they say is filled with “oppression, torture, and terror”:

– Sleep deprivation for periods of up 10 to 20 days.
– Prolonged detentions without any investigation, or knowing why they were arrested, or what the charges are against them.
– Forcing prisoners to confess to crimes that they have no connection to, and that there is no evidence of, or any witnesses to. Confessions are extracted under the threat or practice of psychological and physical torture, sleep deprivation, denying visitation rights, or any communications with the outside for months and sometimes over a year.
– Interrogating the wives of wanted men without her male custodian being present, and using bad manners and behavior with them.
– Being beaten, and insulted with dirty words, being bound and blindfolded for upwards of two weeks and not even being allowed to go to the bathroom or pray.
– Putting prisoners in a black box 1.85 m x .90 m, bound and blindfolded, forbidden to say a word. Sleep deprivation to the point of insanity where people actually have had to be transported to the hospital as a result. Some people have spent nearly a year in these cages in order to force confessions.
– Cameras on the prisoners 24 hours a day.
– Bad lighting which hurts the eyesight and causes depression.
– Prisoners in bad health are deprived medical attention.
– No change of clothes or bed linens for long periods of time.
– The prisoner does not get any of his requests no matter how minor unless he carries out prolonged hunger strikes and sit-ins, and then come only empty promises.
– If the prisoner asks to have his case reviewed, or requests to contact his family, he is insulted and intimidated.
– Inmates are terrified with random transfers to other prisons and solitary confinement.

Prisoner Demands:
– Taking action on our cases that have stagnated for a long time without any judicial rulings.
– Allowing us to contact our families to inform them that we are in prison so they can stop worrying, and to allow visits.
– Improve the living and health conditions of the prisoners, and better treatment of the prisoners.
– The investigation of those who have not had their cases examined, and no longer ignoring them in a cell without any access to legal procedures.

A follow-up comment on the same message board reads: “The prisoners of Tel Aviv are better off and there is more concern for them than the dogs of Ibn Saud.”

NCHR and Emergency law

Partially an addendum to Issandr’s note on the NCHR and the Emergency law

Just had a meeting with Bahay al-Din Hassan of the Cairo Institute for the Study of HR and Egypt’s national council for HR (NCHR). He told me there are two memos are going to the president.
1) repealing Emergency law. He said there was almost a revolt by “some” members frustrated that the vote went as it did last April (24 against discussing to approach the gov to repeal EL, 3 in favor). To date there has been no reaction from the government/president. I asked him if he expected one. He responded, “the government does not respond to the most basic complaint – really mundane – things, why will they respond to this?”

2) The NCHR annual report. Contrary to things I have seen in the press, the report is not ready. Bahay said it was not going to be released until February and not a “single word” has been written yet.

He also said that he is not the only one on the council who is disappointed with the NCHR’s performance and everyday it loses the ability to assert itself.

More will follow on this next month.

Protestors against Sinai torture arrested

Just got this in my inbox:

Egyptian State Security Intelligence Stops Solidarity March and Arrests Human Rights Activists in Arish

The international solidarity March, leaving Cairo today, 10th of December, heading for Rafah to express solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people, has been stopped at the gates of the North Sinai governorate, some 170 km to the south of Arish. At the same time organizers of the march learned that Ashraf Ayoub, Ashraf Gouaidar, Ashraf Hofni, Mhamed Khatabiu, Alaa El Kashef and Aytman Roufeili, founders of the Committee for Citizens’ rights in the North of Sinai have been arrested an hour ago by SSI police and are, at the time of writing this release, held at the SSI headquarters of Arish, where hundreds of Arish citizens have been subject to the most brutal forms of torture for the past two months.

Participants in the solidarity march are Egyptian antiwar and human rights activists and members of the press, joined by 35 international antiwar activist among whom are 19 from France, 6 from the UK, 2 from Spain, 4 from Greece, one from Turkey and one from Austria.

We call upon you to urgently send letters of protest to Egyptian officials demanding the immediate release of the activists who have played a crucial role in exposing the crimes of torture taking place in Arish and who have provided an urgently needed help to torture survivors.

The international solidarity March planning to head for Rafah today was organized in agreement with the resolutions of the antiwar conference organized Sept. 17-19 at Le Bristol Hotel in Beirut

Click “more” below for details on how to appeal to the authorities for their release.

Continue reading Protestors against Sinai torture arrested

On the anti-Semitism report

Although its intention is worthwhile, I disagree with Tom Lantos’ bill requiring the State Department to prepare an annual report on global anti-Semitism that has been signed by President Bush.

Lantos, the sole Holocaust survivor in Congress, pushed the idea amid reports of increased anti-Semitic incidents in Europe and continued propaganda against Jews and Israel in the Arab media.

The State Department had opposed his proposal, saying it would send the wrong signal around the world to single out anti-Semitism for special treatment over other human rights problems and stressing the department was already reporting on the issue.

Bush signed the bill Saturday without comment. But his signature was expected, especially in an election year in which the Jewish vote in swing states could prove important to Bush’s re-election contest against Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.

As the State Department argues, anti-Semitism is already covered in its reports, notably its human rights report. Singling out anti-Semitism as a special form of racism is a bad idea, if only because it dissociates it from racism and makes it something “special” — something that will fuel the arguments of the anti-Semites. Highlighting anti-Semitism like this also exaggerates the phenomenon. In the case of the Arab world, where anti-Semitism is admittedly rife and occasionally gets violent, as it did in Morocco in 2003 or in Tunisia in 2002, it will compound a common misperception that anti-Semitism is the biggest form of discrimination taking place.

Taking Egypt as an example, there has been much real state persecution against Shias or Ba’hais, but no case of anti-Jewish persecution. Furthermore, if we’re going by religious groups then the most persecuted people are those accused (often falsely) of being Sunni fundamentalists. There are 12-15,000 alleged fundamentalists being held in Egyptian jails, often without trial. The vast majority of them are non-violent. Yet we’re more likely to hear about anti-Semitic articles in the Egyptian state press or TV. Focusing on anti-Semitism over other groups’ rights simply distorts the picture, which is in nobody’s interests. They should get serious about promoting human rights for everybody — Jewish or not.