(Cairo) - Torture is an endemic problem in Egypt and ending police abuse has been a driving element behind the massive popular demonstrations that swept Egypt over the past week, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Prosecuting torture and ending the emergency laws that enable a culture of impunity for the security forces should be a priority for the Egyptian government, Human Rights Watch said.
From Human Rights Watch report on Egypt: Impunity for Torture Fuels Days of Rage New Government Should Prosecute Police Abuses, Make Clean Break With Torture
January 31, 2011
It's difficult for the US government and the Republicans & neocons & supporters of the former Bush/Cheney Regime to criticize Mubarak on human rights violations since America under Bush and Obama continues to abuse and torture so called detainees or POWS.
Of course they have redefined torture so that the practices used by US authorities can not be called torture; but America is a torture state.
The US has lost its credibility one would hope given its human rights abuses and the launching of an unnecessary, illegal, immoral war against the Iraqi people.
The US has over and over again taken part in the murder and massacres of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bradley manning for instance who is accused of leaking documents to Wikileaks is being kept in solitary confinement for over 9 months which according to human rights groups this is a form of torture.
The problem with justifying torture in some cases opens the flood gates of rationalizations for the use of torture. So now the abuse and torture of prisoners has trickled down to US civilian prisons across the USA from Dallas to Phoenix to Chicago .
Besides being a Torture State Egypt under Mubarak is against freedom of the press ; freedom of assembly; free and fair elections; the right to dissent and so on.
But the USA is also not in favor of freedom of the press as we have seen in regards to Wikileaks and calls for Julian Assange to be tried and executed or just "taken out" by US special ops.
Obama has in fact come down on whistleblowers even more harshly than president Bush.
Obama for all his pretty speeches still sides unconditionally with Israel and Israel also abuses and tortures prisoners Israel has also broken every international agreement on the protection of Human Rights. Israel has again and again defied the United Nations and has continued for instance to occupy territories which they illegally occupied in the six day war 1967.As I mentioned in the last post the US has no respect for the United Nations unless the UN does whatever America wants.
The United States government ban on AlJazeera is just another example of American hypocrisy when it comes to the freedom of the press.
Obama has also claimed that like the Egyptian government or that of Israel or Iran or Saudi Arabia and Communist China and north Korea have the right shut down parts or all of the internet if they perceive the Net as a political and social threat.
The Obama and the Bush administration have both argued that they have a right to spy on millions of Americans which they rationalize on the grounds that America is involved in a shooting war that is the war on terror.
Of course a couple of decades ago the US government had the excuse of its cold war with Russia as an excuse for ignoring human rights violations in America's client states such as Egypt , Iraq, Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvadore, Indonesia etc.
Fox News & Tea Party Republicans raise fears about Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
They see the Revolution in Egypt as part of the Islamic take over of Western Civilization
But we were told by Bush and Neocons that they wanted to spread democracy throughout the middle east but now not so much.
They claimed that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was supposed to be the start of supposedly planting the seeds of democracy in the Middle East. This is of course a typical colonial and somewhat racist view of non-Western nations as being backward, retarded and barbaric who we are told do not share our Western Values.
But what in the wide wide world of sports could these values be given the American perception torture is ok in the West as is baning News agencies which might be critical of the US or the incarceration in the USA of over 2,000 children or the execution of children or individuals who are considered mentally retarded or who are mentally ill or the refusal to reopen a legal case of someone incarcerated on Death Row because the Judge or Governor is uninterested or doesn't want to revisit a case already decided upon.
The Young Turks and Fox News odd response to Egyptian Pro-democracy Revolution
Middle East Democracy 'Virus' - McCain
Egypt: Impunity for Torture Fuels Days of Rage
New Government Should Prosecute Police Abuses, Make Clean Break With Torture
January 31, 2011
(Cairo) - Torture is an endemic problem in Egypt and ending police abuse has been a driving element behind the massive popular demonstrations that swept Egypt over the past week, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Prosecuting torture and ending the emergency laws that enable a culture of impunity for the security forces should be a priority for the Egyptian government, Human Rights Watch said.and so it goes,
The 95-page report, "‘Work on Him Until He Confesses': Impunity for Torture in Egypt," documents how President Hosni Mubarak's government implicitly condones police abuse by failing to ensure that law enforcement officials accused of torture are investigated and criminally prosecuted, leaving victims without a remedy.
The case of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man beaten to death by two undercover police officers on an Alexandria street in June, dominated headlines and set off demonstrations across the country. The local prosecutor initially closed an investigation and ordered Said's burial, but escalating public protests prompted the Public Prosecutor to reopen the investigation and refer it to court. "We Are All Khaled Said" is the name of the Facebook group that helped initiate the mass demonstrations on January 25, 2011.
The report urges officials to undertake immediate legal, structural, and political reforms to ensure that the judicial system holds perpetrators of torture accountable and deters future abuse. It examines dozens of cases of torture and death in custody for which victims or their families instituted legal proceedings by filing a complaint.
The vast majority of torture complaints never reach court because of police intimidation of victims and witnesses who file complaints, an inadequate legal framework, and delays in referring victims for medical examination, Human Rights Watch said. Another factor is that police from the same unit as the alleged torturer are responsible for gathering evidence and summoning witnesses.
Said's case was an exception, one of very few in which media coverage and public outrage prompted senior members of the Public Prosecutor's office to become involved, which ensures a speedy and full investigation. In November 2009 the government published statistics showing that between 2006 and 2009, Egyptian courts had sentenced only six police officers for torture and inhumane treatment, despite hundreds of complaints about torture and deaths in custody. In July 2010 an Alexandria appeals court confirmed a five-year sentence against a seventh officer.
"In a country where torture remains a serious and systemic problem, the conviction of a mere seven police officers over four years reflects a huge disconnect from reality and leaves hundreds of victims and families without justice," Stork said.
GORD.
No comments:
Post a Comment