By Mai Shams El-Din
CAIRO: In December, member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Major General Mokhtar El-Molla criticized in a meeting with foreign journalists the media’s focus on the cases of detained bloggers like Alaa Abdel-Fattah and Maikel Nabil.
“Nabil and Abdel-Fattah are Egyptians and we are very keen to protect all Egyptians. But we are talking about one citizen out of 85 million,” he said.
In a letter from inside his dark, narrow prison cell, Nabil wrote about one such citizen.
“The military believes that one citizen is a useless, marginalized thing, but their minds cannot understand that only one citizen put an end to Mubarak’s rule: the citizen Khaled Mohamed Saeid.”
Nabil described this ‘one citizen’ theory as a fascist ideology where the rights of one can be compromised to protect the well-being of an entire society, forgetting that sacrificing the freedom of one leads to the enslavement of all.
One year after Egypt’s popular revolt toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, the state of human rights has worsened as thousands of civilians were referred to military trials, reports of violations and torture against prisoners increased, and protesters were killed and injured.
After Mubarak’s ouster, SCAF’s sugarcoated statements about “protecting the revolution” heightened aspirations of democracy for millions of Egyptians.
SCAF dissolved the parliament and disbanded the State Security apparatus known for its flagrant violations of human rights under Mubarak, but immediately formed “Homeland Security,” which many saw as a mere change in name.
“The SCAF has fallen short of satisfying the hopes and aspirations that were at the heart of the uprising,” Amnesty International said in its first major report about the Arab Spring titled “Year of Rebellion: The State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa.”
Military tribunals
In one year, around 12,000 civilians were subjected to military tribunals, a move justified by SCAF as a way to preserve order after police forces withdrew from the streets on Jan. 28.
This claim was, however, disproved by rights activists who said that military trials continued even after police returned in full force.
“SCAF has tried over 12,000 civilians in military courts in seven months, while ousted president Hosni Mubarak used military trials for silencing only 2,000 civilian political opponents in 30 years,” lawyer and executive director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC), Ahmed Ragheb, said in a press conference in September.
The abhorrent practices discovered to be associated with military tribunals included, according to rights activists, beatings during arrest, torture and maltreatment inside military prison, and the lack of basic rights in courts where lawyers faced many violations while defending clients. In numerous cases, defendants were handed down prison sentences in the absence of their lawyers.
Forced virginity checks performed on seven female protesters arrested during a violent crackdown on a Tahrir sit-in last March was one of the most flagrant violations by military police.
Samira Ibrahim, one of those protesters, was the first to take her case to court, winning a verdict by the Administrative Court to end the practice of virginity checks in military prison.
Ibrahim filed two other lawsuits, one before the Administrative Court against referring her to a military trial — where she received one-year suspended sentence — and another before a military court against those who performed the virginity checks.
Ibrahim is yet to see justice. The military court has charged the doctor who performed the checks with public indecency but her lawyers are struggling to change the charge to sexual assault.
“Military trials for civilians are a continuation of Mubarak’s selective justice used to oppress opponents. Trying civilians before military courts on the pretext of the deteriorating security situation is a typical pre-revolution policy,” said Ragheb.
“Military trials are expanding, not only in terms of the number of civilians tried, but geographically as well; citizens in Suez, Alexandria, Ismailia, Qena, Assuit and Gharbeya are tried in military courts.”
Military tribunals have not only targeted Tahrir protesters, but also ordinary citizens who were sometimes accused of violating the curfew, or were involved in minor scuffles with neighbors.
Nabil and Abdel-Fattah were the first to reject being interrogated by the military prosecution. Nabil received a two-year prison sentence, but Abdel Fattah was eventually referred to a civilian investigating judge in the Maspero case, and was released pending investigations.
Nabil received a pardon this week, and was released on Tuesday evening.
The two were not the only political activists targeted by the military judiciary. Prominent activist and former member of the April 6 Youth Movement, Asmaa Mahfouz was referred to military prosecution after posting a critical opinion of SCAF and was accused of incitement to violence using her Twitter account, but she was quickly pardoned because her interrogation drew a wave of criticism by political powers and rights groups.
In 2011, SCAF repeatedly promised to lift the decades-long state of emergency, but instead widened the scope of the Emergency Law in September when angry protesters stormed the Israeli Embassy to protest the killing of six Egyptian soldiers on the border.
SCAF promised later to lift the emergency law before parliamentary elections.
Head of the military judiciary General Adel El-Morsy said that military trials for civilians would not end until the emergency law is lifted.
In a speech on Jan. 24, Tantawi said the emergency state will be lifted on the morning of the first anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising. The law would still apply in cases of “thuggery,” he said.
Right to speak
In the meantime, freedom of expression has suffered. Following a brief period in which the future of media looked promising, former information minister Osama Heikel declared that no more licenses will be given to satellite channels.
“Words and opinions are still more powerful than live bullets,” lawyer Negad El-Borai said in a press conference in January.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) slammed in a statement in January the crackdown on freedom of expression when four members of the April 6 Youth Movement were arrested for “hanging anti-SCAF posters,” as well as the continuous attacks on the “3askar Kazeboon” (Military Liars) campaign that aims to expose violations of army forces through film screenings in neighborhoods around the country.
“The SCAF is using the same tactics and the same oppression [of Mubarak] by using the general prosecution to restrict freedom of expression. This time they used organized groups from the remnants of the old regime to clash with anti-SCAF campaigns,” ANHRI said.
“SCAF presents this as a scuffle between two [groups] of the citizens, as if the revolution is a point of view, as if democracy is a subject of conflict between two sides.”
Executive Director of ANHRI, lawyer Gamal Eid recounted the crackdown on media and freedom of expression since February.
“We expected [a bit of] confusion in the political performance of SCAF because military institutions are undemocratic by nature, but the crackdown on free speech definitely betrays bad intentions,” Eid said.
“SCAF should have given more space to free media and free speech as a sign of goodwill. Enabling media to criticize SCAF will help them perform better,” he said.
Stains of blood
The killing and injuring of peaceful protesters were the most flagrant of human rights violations in 2011, bringing to mind the bloody crackdown of the Mubarak regime on Jan. 25 protesters, which left over 800 killed and thousands injured.
The bloody crackdowns on a mostly Coptic protest in October left 27 dead and hundreds injured; on Tahrir protesters in Mohamed Mahmoud Street in November that left over 45 dead; and on protesters camped outside the Cabinet building in December left 19 dead — heightening abuses to a frightening level.
In Maspero, 14 of the 27 victims were run over by Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), in Mohamed Mahmoud excessive amounts of teargas were used, and in the Cabinet clashes women were targeted by army forces. In all three incidents, protesters were killed with live bullets.
No serious investigations were launched in these three incidents or any of the violations before them, according to rights groups.
“These violations come in an atmosphere of averting punishment and lack of accountability as many of the complaints [against violations] are ignored by the Prosecutor General,” ANHRI said.
Targeting
A group of foreign and local non-profit organizations (NGOs) were raided by army forces and prosecutors in December and had their equipment and documents confiscated.
Minister of Justice Adel Abdel Hameed said in a press conference earlier in December that investigations into illegal foreign funding were based on the results of a probe conducted by a fact-finding committee affiliated to the ministry.
“The probe examined the legality of the work of 300 NGOs and the direct foreign funding they received from foreign governments and organizations,” the minister said.
“The investigations revealed that a number of Egyptian and foreign organizations received foreign funding and worked illegally inside Egypt. Investigations are ongoing as other state monitoring institutions are compiling reports about these organizations,” he added.
Rights organizations slammed this escalation, describing it as a move to silence voices of dissent.
“This serious step marks the beginning of a security campaign that is expected to affect dozens of advocacy groups, and is part of a broader campaign launched by the SCAF to smear and stigmatize all rights activists and numerous forces involved in the January 25 revolution,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a statement in December.
“The aim of this unprecedented campaign is to cover up SCAF’s failures in the transitional period and harass political groups, activists, and rights advocates who have dared criticize its policies, expose the shameful abuses that have taken place under its administration, and in some cases successfully pursued legal action against military violations before the courts,” EIPR added in a joint statement with other rights groups, titled “Crisis of Human Rights in Egypt: The Bitter Results of Ten Months in the Grip of the Military.”
Observers believe that human rights violations against pro-democracy advocates are a continuation of Mubarak’s oppressive tactics and a sign of a decaying tyranny exerting all efforts to survive a revolution.
Women were targeted during the Cabinet clashes. (AFP Photo)
