The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
PRESS
RELEASE
The EOHR condemns the detention and torture of 12 citizens in the Kasr Al-Nil police station |
Sunday, 13 September 1998
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is extremely concerned about the random arrest of 12 citizens on Sunday and Monday, 6-7 September 1998 in the Gezira and Kasr Al-Nil police stations, where they were allegedly tortured and ill-treated to force them to give information about a theft of which the relative of one of them was accused. According to a complaint made by Mrs. Mervat Mohammed Hassan to the EOHR, on 6 September 1998 members of the Basateen police station arrested her husband, Sayid Abdalla Soliman, in front of their home, in the Dar Al-Salaam district, and took him together with his mother, sister and brother to the Kasr Al-Nil police station. There, he was questioned about the theft of some belongings from a woman for whom his mother worked as a cleaner. Asked about where he was at the time of the crime, he responded that at one of his relatives', Akram Mohammed Hassan, in Al-Salaam City. Subsequently, the police arrested the latter along with his brothers Hani and Emad Mohammed Hassan, and took them to the Kasr Al-Nil police station. There, they were held with iron fetters, hanged to a door and beaten all over the body. The police also arrested the brother-in-law of the accused, Mohammed Ahmed Ali. Mervat Mohammed Hassan added that when she visited her husband in the Kasr Al-Nil police station on 7 September, she was detained, threatened with rape, and beaten to force her to confess that her husband had committed the theft. A further three relatives of the accused were also arrested, held in the same police station, and beaten to coerce them to give information. The complainant added that nine of those detained had been released on condition that they reported to the station when required, whereas another three were taken to an unidentified location. Upon this complaint, the EOHR sent two lawyers to the Kasr Al-Nil police station, but the chief of the station denied that any of the people mentioned were being held there. Subsequently, the lawyers went to the Kasr Al-Nil Prosecution Office, where they filed a report and requested a visit by the chief prosecutor to the place of detention in compliance with article 43 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that: "Anyone who becomes aware that a person is illegally detained or detained in a place other than those assigned for confinement must inform a member of the public prosecution, who, upon receiving the information, should go immediately to the place of the confinement, conduct an investigation, order the release of the illegally detained person and make a report on the event." However, contrary to this article, the chief prosecutor only called the chief of the police station. Around ninety minutes later, the EOHR lawyers were informed that none of the people in question were held in the Kasr Al-Nil station. Subsequently, the lawyers filed a report on these events to the General Prosecutor under number 1487, and another to the attorney general of the central Cairo prosecution offices. The EOHR believes that the use of random arrest and torture to extract confessions is a flagrant violation of articles 41, 42 and 66 of the Constitution, which prohibit the arrest, search or detention of a person without an order by the competent judge or the Public Prosecution Department. They also prohibit detention in any place other than those specified by the law. Moreover, these arrests violate the principle of the personality of punishment. The EOHR also believes that the practice of torturing citizens in police stations to extract confessions is a flagrant violation of the Constitution and international human rights standards to which Egypt is committed. The EOHR urges the competent authorities to promptly release those still detained, and to conduct an investigation into the detention and torture of the above mentioned citizens in compliance with the law, the Constitution and international human rights conventions ratified by Egypt.
