CAIRO: The National Council of Human Rights (NCHR) called Sunday for amending the penal code and improving the treatment of detainees in its third annual report on the country s human rights situation.
The report s focus on the treatment of prisoners and abuses by security services came even as Egypt s bloggers and human rights groups have been daily releasing new evidence of abuse by police.
One of the most important laws that must be addressed is the one governing administrative detention and its procedures so that torture against detainees is punished, the 400-page report recommended.
A system of overseeing the implementation of the penal code must be put in place to ensure the good treatment of prisoners, said NCHR, which is chaired by former UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Despite being set up by the state itself, the committee s reports have often supported the allegations of local and international rights groups of a persistent pattern of violations in Egypt.
The report also emphasized the need to cancel the state of emergency in the country and called on the government to put limits on the practices of certain men in power and their inhuman treatment of detainees.
The assessment of the human rights situation in Egypt in 2006 was based on the 5,826 complaints received by the council – a 25 percent increase from the previous year – which they attempted to address.
The report admitted that in many cases security services were not particularly responsive to their inquiries.
Hafez Abu Saada, an NCHR member, acknowledged that the lack of impact is a weak point of the council, though he maintained the organization still had an important function in publicizing the violations.
We have to create a committee to follow up on our recommendations, he said, adding that this would be a focus of the council s new three-year term.
