BM News: Inside look at Egypt’s military camps

Inside look at Egypt’s military camps

Bikya Masr

28 June 2009

CAIRO: In the early 1990s, military camps in Egypt proved a precursor to the United States’ Guantanamo Bay Camp X-Ray prison and were the center of Islamists fears. It was in these military camps spread across the country that police employed torture tactics and beat up prisoners free from judicial oversight. Today, a decade on, the military camps have been reopened to house political activists and opponents in what rights groups are calling an outrage.

There is nothing the prosecutor general or any other civil department can do about it, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported. Outspoken blogger Mohamed Khairi was held in one of the “infamous camps” in Fayoum, an hour south of Cairo, late last year.

Khairi, who was released from custody on November 4, after state security forces ordered him to cease writing on his garshkal.blogspot.com blog, but after refusing to end his writing, was rounded up on November 16, and taken to the Fayoum prison.

For its part, the government prosecutor has ordered the young blogger’s release, but because the camps are off-limits to judicial or legal scrutiny, the order was ignored. The state security apparatus has been unwilling to release information on Khairi’s case, even after the Legal Aid Unit for Freedom of Expression – a sub-unit of ANHRI – and the blogger’s father filed two lawsuits.

Gamal Eid, the Executive Director at ANHRI, says this return to the stormy days of state-sponsored torture reveals that the government appears unwilling to change its stance toward torture.

“The return to using these infamous places is dangerous, and the most dangerous thing about this case is that the person who is being held here is a blogger who has never been involved or even suspected of being involved in acts of violence,” he said.

According to Eid, Khairi’s only crime is writing on his blog, demanding that the economic blockade against Gaza be lifted. Eid argues that Khairi’s detention in the prison camp reveals a stark truth about the use of violence and torture by security forces.

“Using these camps shows that the government is willing to continue to turn a blind eye to the use of violence and even torture,” he continues, “and it is a dark time for Egypt and Egyptians.”

Khairi’s family is most certainly worried about his health. According to a former inmate in Fayoum, when he was imprisoned in the early 1990s after being involved in extremist movements – which he now denounces – police would beat him often.

“It was a horrible situation for many of us, and I can’t really go into details because I am afraid of what would happen,” the former Islamist begins, “but the people in charge of us would beat us and do things that are totally unacceptable under normal conditions. They took out their frustrations on us.”

Although he wouldn’t go into detail, the secrecy of the camps is worrisome to many human rights workers, who believe worse things that beatings occur. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) has followed the use of these detention centers since the 1980s through to their demise in the late 1990s until their re-establishment this year.

Tariq Zaghloul, EOHR’s field director, said that the information coming out of these camps they receive from former prisoners like the Islamist above. However, he argues that those prisoners most likely do not tell the entire story for fear of returning.

“They used to be collected in large numbers and taken to these camps where they face a number of inhuman treatments, but we are not allowed to get into details because of the security situation facing former detainees,” argued Zaghloul, highlighting the struggle for information.

“Right now, with the same government in power as then, it is unlikely we will know what happens.”

The Islamist confirms Zaghloul’s assertions that it is unlikely that a full picture of what happened and what is persisting in the military camps will be made known until a regime change of some kind.

“The people who used violence on me and other prisoners still work for the State Security, so it is dangerous to talk,” he added.

One thing is certain, as it seems to be in the American detention camp for suspected terrorists, until a full investigation is undertaken the details of what prisoners experienced, or in Khairi’s case, are witnessing.

Local and international rights groups, including the EOHR and ANHRI, have called on the government to give them access to these camps, but because they lie outside judicial scrutiny authority has been deferred.

**Portions of this report originially appeared in Middle East Times

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