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Systematic torture of children in Egypt

April 12, 2014 at 1:10 pm

The London-based Arab Organization for Human rights (AOHR) issued a report Thursday titled: “Children without Rights” in which it documented the systematic torture and arbitrary arrests of children in Egypt since the July 3 military coup.


According to the report, underage children (less than 18 years) have played a prominent role in opposing the July 3 military coup by taking part in demonstrations. In response, the interim authorities confronted them using disproportionate force, killing a large number of children and arresting hundreds. Those arrested have been subjected to torture and forced disappearance.

At least 575 children have been arbitrarily arrested since the July 3 military coup, the AOHR reported.

However, the number is presumably much higher than the numbers provided by officials, since in many cases the age of the detainees is either hidden or reported as an older age by officials to avoid accusation of breaching the law by locking up children in the same place with adult criminals.

The AOHR report cited 16 complaints submitted by families of underage detainees, wherein the families confirmed that their children were subjected to flagrant violations of local and international laws, such as arbitrary arrest, indefinite provisional detention, depriving them of fair trials, imprisoning them with convicted adult criminals, imprisoning them in places far away from their families, forced disappearance, systematic torture to solicit false confessions, distorting the child’s reputation in society, carelessness, maltreatment and the inhumane living conditions at detention centers.

The AOHR stressed that the crimes committed by Egyptian authorities against children amount to a violation of the Children Rights agreement issued by the UN in 1989.

The report urged the UN to take a serious stand to rescue those children and save their future.