Human Rights: Egypt

Some observations on the Egypt section of the State Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006, released on March 6:

--A read through the very extensive Egypt report gives some useful perspective to the deep concerns over President Hosni Mubarak's proposed constitutional amendments, which were approved in an Egyptian referendum on Monday. (See my time.com story on the referendum.) Many of the concerns focus on amendments related to police powers and supervision of elections, areas that come in for strong criticism in the State Department report.

--The report's summary of human rights in Egypt:

"The government's respect for human rights remained poor, and serious abuses continued in many areas. These included limitations on the right of citizens to change their government; a state of emergency, in place almost continuously since 1967; torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees; poor conditions in prisons and detention centers; impunity; arbitrary arrest and detention, including prolonged pretrial detention; executive branch limits on an independent judiciary; denial of fair public trial and lack of due process; political prisoners and detainees; restrictions on civil liberties--freedoms of speech and press, including internet freedom; assembly and association; some restrictions on religious freedom; corruption and lack of transparency; some restrictions on NGOs; and discrimination and violence against women, including female genital mutilation."

--POLICE POWERS: The new amendment to Article 179 gives constitutional authority for the president to exercise broad police powers in fighting terrorism, which human rights groups say would enshrine the 26-year-old State of Emergency in the constitution to perpetuate political repression. The State Department report describes a state security apparatus that already commits widespread abuses including torture and operates under a Penal Code that broadly defines terrorism as including acts of "spreading panic and "obstructing the work of authorities." It says that detentions under the Emergency "frequently were accompanied by allegations of torture" and that the government used the Emergency to restrict freedom of speech and of the press. The report says the government detained as many as 10,000 people without charge on suspicion of terrorism or political activity. The detainees ranged from Muslim Brotherhood activists to secular government opponents including Internet bloggers. "Security forces continued to mistreat and torture prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, hold detainees in prolonged pretrial detention, and engage in mass arrests," the report says.

--TORTURE: The report says that "torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees by police, security personnel, and prison guards remained common and persistent." It says that domestic and international human rights groups reported that the State Security Investigations Service, police, and other government entities continued to employ torture to extract information or force confessions. The report cites a study by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights documenting past cases of torture and death in police stations: 156 cases of torture between 2000 and 2004 (75 nonfatal) and 59 cases (38 nonfatal) between April 2005 and April 2006. The EOHR report says that detainees were kicked, burned with cigarettes, shackled, forcibly stripped, beaten with water hoses, and dragged on the floor.

--IMPUNITY: Calling impunity "a serious problem," the report says that "a culture of impunity militated against systematic prosecution of security personnel who committed human rights abuses." It cites numerous instances of the government failing to investigate or punish acts of serious police abuse. For example, it says that the government failed to conduct any public probe or disciplinary proceedings in the case of 11 citizens killed by security forces during 2005 parliamentary elections. The report says that for the 11th year the government declined to permit an inspection visit by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, or to allow some international human rights groups access to Egyptian prisons and detention facilities. On a more hopeful note, however, the report cites several landmark instances in which police officers were in fact charged and convicted of abuses.

--ELECTION SUPERVISION: The new amendment to Article 88 raises concerns because it eliminates judicial supervision in favor of oversight by a new supreme elections council. The State Department report cites the government's controversial effort to prosecute two leading judges who alleged election fraud in the 2005 parliamentary polls. The case prompted large demonstrations in which hundreds of people were detained. The report notes that while the government backed away from harsh treatment of the dissident judges--a disciplinary court exonerated one and rebuked the other--parliament nonetheless approved a new judicial law that was widely seen as diminishing the judiciary's supervisory role in elections.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo