BM News: True stories of Egypt’s police brutality (part 1 of 2)

Part 1: True stories of Egypt’s police brutality

Bikya Masr

29 June 2009

CAIRO: Haytham Fawzy Al Rabie stays awake every night keeping an eye on the space where a door should be. The reason he does so is a result of a night last November when police blasted into the apartment, beat up him and his son, and in the process destroyed the door. Police brutality and violence are becoming all too frequent in Egypt. Rabie is one of the unfortunate ones to have first hand experience with the country’s now infamous police.

Speaking at the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), which had a number of observers and a leading lawyer present in order to determine whether or not they would represent him in what will be a long and arduous fight against the government.

“It is always difficult to determine what is the fact and what is made up, but I think we have a really strong case,” EOHR’s Fardous Ahmed Ali said after hearing the details of the police incident, adding that the organization would represent Rabie and his family.

The events in question occurred on November 11 this year as a family gathering in Cairo’s poorer Hadayak Al Qobra neighborhood with a few friends turned into a nightmare Rabie is able to recount as if the events happened only minutes earlier. Without as much as a blink, he retells the events, forcing out every gruesome detail of what the police did to him and his family.

Late at night, the group of friends and family were relaxing together, when a knock came to their door. The local police chief from the area was standing in the doorway.  The officer asked for the son to come speak with him. When the father refused to allow the officer access to his son, the door was broken down and a group of policemen entered the house, throwing out the friends.

“They then went after my son and I, grabbing us and throwing us across the room, breaking furniture and many things we had,” Rabie revealed. His wife sitting next to him, nods in affirmation.

According to his testimony, the policemen continued to ransack the home, throwing glasses and lamps to the ground. After they had finished doing so, the police turned their attention to the men.

Handcuffing both of them, they repeatedly kicked and punched them both, before turning to the son, whom they accused of being a local drug dealer. Rabie and his wife vehemently denied any wrongdoing, especially drugs.

The police chief and two of his subordinates then picked up the son, still handcuffed, and dragged him to the balcony. According to Rabie and eyewitnesses who corroborated the story, the policemen proceeded to dangle the young man off the balcony.

“It was horrifying and there was nothing I could do.”

Tossing the young man back inside, he was then officially arrested and taken to the local police station, where he remained overnight.  Although Rabie’s son was to be released after 15 days in detention, he remains bedridden due to the trauma inflicted.

“He doesn’t get out of bed and he is very ill. We don’t know what to do,” said the mother, who did not give her name.

When asked to comment on this specific incident, the ministry of interior refused, saying the case was still under investigation.

Rabie is no stranger to police treatment, having spent three years in prison on what he says were trumped up charges by police who wanted to evict him from his flat. “This was why they continued to harass us, even after I came out of jail,” he admits. According to him, the previous police chief wanted to take over his flat because of its “old rent” status.

In Egypt, there are a number of types of flats to be rented. Old rent refers to a tenant who pays an initial lump sum and then will pay only a minimal monthly fee – often as low as 10 Egyptian pounds ($1.80) – monthly. Rabie and his family have lived in one of these flats since 1997, but the police had been pressuring them for years to leave. He refused, saying he was unable to move anywhere else due to the fact he could not work.

The reason he could not work was a result of alleged prison beating he endured while jailed. His arm is nearly incapacitated due to the violence.  He thus receives a small pension from the lawyers syndicate in order to make ends meet.

“But after this, what are we supposed to do? I stay up all night, I don’t eat well and my son’s health is getting worse and we don’t have the money to get proper treatment. This country is falling apart,” he added.

For its part, the EOHR plans on fighting the case in court in order to get the family compensation for what occurred.

“They deserve justice and it is our goal to help those we can,” Ali added. Despite her optimism, she realizes the difficult task ahead.

“Fighting the government and the police here is difficult and with so many cases like this one, it is hard to prove who is right. It is all based on the word of the policemen and the witnesses.”

And in Egypt, citizens are often left aside when they fight against government officials, she added, pointing to a number of cases where people have been forced to deal with their losses.

“I don’t know, all I know is that I am scared,” Rabie added.

**This is part one in a two-part Bikya Masr series on police violence in Egypt

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