Torture in Egyptian prisons was once a cause for revolt, now it's met by silence

In June 2010, 32-year old Khaled Saeed, a young Egyptian, was arrested in Alexandria and beaten to death by security officers; he was hit repeatedly, banged on his head and thrown against various objects as he was led to their vehicle. Saeed never made it to the police car; shortly afterwards, pictures of his battered and disfigured corpse were circulated on social media. His murder caused outrage which contributed to the growing social discontent; it was a catalyst of the January 25 Revolution of 2011.

Four years later, in June 2014, Ahmed Ibrahim’s father was told by his detained son: “I am dying, father.” The death of Ahmed Ibrahim, also at the hands of Egyptian security forces, sparked no outrage, as Khaled Saeed’s death did. Once a cause for revolt, today amidst the phenomenal record of atrocities and human rights violations in post-coup Egypt, Ahmed Ibrahim’s death, and that of many others, passed almost unnoticed.

Deterioration in human rights

Although Egyptians went out onto the streets in 2011 calling for “bread, freedom and social justice”, and Egypt then saw its first real democratic elections, it appears that the country has regressed, with a return to continuous repression and restriction of freedoms. In the past 13 months, Egypt has seen an unprecedented surge in arbitrary arrests, detentions and harrowing incidents of torture and deaths in police custody; this, plus a sharp deterioration in human rights since the bloody military coup in July last year which ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Over the past year, Egypt has seen a wave of peaceful anti-government protesters taking to the streets to exercise their legitimate right to object to the military coup. Random arrests have become commonplace and the latest figures on the statistical database of the Egyptian revolution, WikiThawra, the statistical arm of the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), reports that during the period 3 July 2013 to 15 May 2014, over 41,000 Egyptians were detained or indicted on charges relating to political, terrorist, sectarian, protest and military acts.

According to WikiThawra, at least 36,478 were arrested during “political events”; 1,714 were accused of committing terrorist acts; and 1,453 were detained for violating curfews. Meanwhile, 415 were arrested for involvement in sectarianism, 142 were arrested during social protests and 87 during labour strikes.

Egypt’s notorious dungeons

Police stations and places of detention have been notorious for torture in Egypt since the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Incredibly brutal torture techniques targeting political prisoners, particularly those who support the Muslim Brotherhood, were used during the presidencies of Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, all of whom were known for repressing the movement.

During the rule of the only democratically-elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, all political prisoners were released. Since his ouster, the prisons of Egypt have filled up, with more prisons built to accommodate the masses arrested.

In July, Amnesty International reported: “Egypt’s notorious state security forces are back and operating at full capacity, employing the same methods of torture and other ill-treatment used during the darkest hours of the Mubarak era. On every level Egypt is failing in terms of human rights.”

On the first anniversary of the military coup, Amnesty released a harrowing report on the deterioration of human rights in the “new” Egypt, with disturbing examples of torture and rape inside the regime’s prisons. Most cases of torture are carried out by the Egyptian military, intelligence services or police, in premises belonging to the National Security Agency. Most detainees are arrested at random, with little, if any, incriminating evidence; their detention is treated as a metaphorical fishing expedition where they are tortured to force them to give up any information that would justify their incarceration.

Interrogations and systematic torture within the Egyptian prisons and detention centres are carried out routinely, and some are outside judicial oversight in secret military prisons where hundreds of “disappeared” Egyptians are being held. One such prison is Azouli Prison in the Galaa military camp in Ismailia where around 400 Egyptians are thought to be held outside the legal system without documentation, in circumstances that allow their jailers to act without fear of even hypothetical consequences.

There have been 14,668 documented cases of torture inside 325 prisons and detention centres, in 22 governorates of Egypt. These range from severe beatings, electrocution, sexual assault, rape, prevention of sleep and prevention from using toilet facilities.

Rampant torture and deaths at the hands of security forces

Flagrant violations are continuing in all Egyptian prisons, with security forces effectively granted a free rein to commit human rights violations with impunity. As a result of these violations and the disregard for the sanctity of human life, more prisoners are dying in custody.

According to WikiThawra, at least 80 detainees have died during the period 3 July 2013 to 15 May 2014. This figure only includes prisoners who are documented, but with the existence of secret military prisons holding “disappeared” persons, it is unlikely to be an accurate representation of the number of those killed in detention.

Prisoners are routinely electrocuted, beaten, suspended naked by their wrists and ankles for hours, sexually assaulted and raped. They undergo this torture until they give the interrogator specific information, memorise confessions or until they are deemed to be of no further use to their interrogators. The latter has occurred in a few cases, resulting in the prisoners’ release.

When Ahmed Ibrahim’s father arrived at the police station following that fateful phone call, he was met with his corpse. Upon examination of his son’s body, he found bruises and cuts which suggested that he may have been tortured. Ahmed Ibrahim was one of at least four prisoners who died in Cairo’s Mattereya Police Station within three months. Neighbours claim that there have been many more, but families are pushed to bury their loved ones quietly.

Following the greatest mass killing in Egypt’s recent history, last August’s Rabaa Al-Adawiyya Square massacre, families were told that they could only collect the bodies of those killed if they signed a certificate saying that the cause of death was suicide, despite gunshot wounds to the head or chest inflicted by the security forces. Similarly today, many families collecting their relatives from police stations or mortuaries are told to sign that their loved ones died of natural causes, in spite of there being visible signs of torture; if they refuse, they are not be permitted to collect or bury the deceased. Other families have been threatened with the deaths of other family members if they do not keep quiet.

When humanity is lost

The parents of 21-year-old Eslam Al-Sayyed from Alexandria were told that their son had committed suicide by falling from the roof whilst trying to escape from prison, yet his body was covered with visible signs of torture, which were clearly the cause of his death. Eslam was arrested while sitting in a café two days previously with his friends, charged with possessing a weapon, which was later found out to be a cigarette lighter.

Forty-six year old Abdel-Fattah Soliman Al-Gherbawy died inside Mattereya Police Station in May. A forensic report revealed that he had nine broken ribs, gashes covering his body, a brain haemorrhage and concussion, among other injuries, before his death. He had been in custody for three days under unrelenting torture. His family was not even told of his death.

Hajar, one of the many girls who are detained, was raped after she was arrested in Nasr City in Cairo. She was pregnant as a result and was beaten repeatedly until she miscarried. The young woman bled to death. Hajar is an example of hundreds of girls who are incarcerated in the horrific dungeons of the new Egypt.

Not only is torture commonplace in the many detention facilities across Egypt, but there is also extreme overcrowding as well as routine denial of medical care. Deaths in custody due to medical negligence are also on the rise, as well as those as a result of torture.

The fact that the same methods of torture are undertaken across all detention facilities in Egypt suggests that this is an authorised institutional procedure that is carried out with training and supervision provided by the government. Moreover, the presence of electrocution devices in all police stations is further evidence that this is the case.

How many Khaled Saeeds will it take?

Human rights groups say that the deaths will continue as long as Egypt’s security forces are able to operate with impunity. Mohamed Elmessiry, Amnesty’s Egypt researcher, noted that this will continue “as long as police officers are not held responsible for these deaths.”

It is indeed tragic that where it was once a cause for revolt, rampant torture and deaths at the hands of security forces continue unabated at an alarming rate with little public outrage. Will all of these new Khaled Saeed cases bring about another revolution as his death did four years ago? Certainly the will of the people has not broken despite Egypt today being one big prison without walls, but when the general population live in fear, under oppression and austerity, and blood is cheaper than water, complicit silence is often seen as the sensible option.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.