By AFP
CAIRO: Human Rights Watch has criticized Egyptian police for beating and arresting protesters at several peaceful rallies this month, saying the treatment amounted to “extrajudicial punishment.”
“Egyptian authorities should stop beating and arbitrarily arresting peaceful demonstrators and investigate those responsible,” said Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East director Joe Stork in a statement late Monday.
“Security officials need to learn how to do their jobs without gratuitous violence that amounts to extrajudicial punishment,” he said.
Egypt was swept by protests following the death on June 6 of 28-year-old Khaled Saeid, who rights groups say was beaten to death by police in the northern port city of Alexandria.
HRW says police arrested about 100 demonstrators during three protests after Saeid’s death, and on June 20 beat up demonstrators and reporters in a Cairo protest and arrested 55 activists.
Most of those arrested in the protests have been released.
The death of Saeid, who rights groups and witnesses say was dragged out of an internet cafe and beaten to death by two undercover policemen, outraged dissidents and sparked protests in Cairo and Alexandria.
Graphic pictures of his corpse where circulated on the internet, appearing to show he was beaten so badly that his jaw was dislocated and teeth were broken.
The interior ministry said he died after choking on a bag of drugs.
The public prosecutor ordered a second autopsy after the first cleared the police of any wrongdoing, and announced last week that the results showed Saeid died of asphyxiation after swallowing a bag of marijuana.
The prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, said Saeid’s injuries might have been sustained as police tried to restrain him, but they were not the cause of death.
European ambassadors on Monday said in a statement they were concerned about Saeid’s death and welcomed “the declared readiness of the Egyptian authorities to conduct a judicial inquiry into this death.”
The state-owned Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday that an appeal court prosecution investigation showed that Said died of asphyxiation after swallowing a bag of drugs.
The prosecution also called in two policemen for questioning over the incident, the paper reported.
Gamal Eid, a rights lawyer, said further investigation into the death was expected.
