Egypt youth groups campaign for thousands of 'forgotten' detainees

By Nada Rashwan

CAIRO

In hopes of reviving a cause that has largely crept out of the limelight amid mounting popular apathy, youth groups are launching a new campaign to show solidarity with – and rekindle public interest in –the thousands of Egyptians detained since elected president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the army last July.

"This is a message to the government that we won't give up our rights; it's also a means of keeping the plight of the prisoners fresh in people's minds," Amr Ali, general coordinator of Egypt's April 6 protest movement, told Anadolu Agency.

On Tuesday evening, protest groups plan to form a human chain on a major bridge in Cairo overlooking the iconic Tahrir Square.

"Instead of simply chanting slogans, a human chain will allow us to display posters detailing the stories of detainees," explained Ali.

He said the aim was to raise awareness about the detainees' cause in the face of a smear campaign waged by Egypt's pro-army media.

Organizers of the event include the centrist Strong Egypt and Egyptian Current parties and the Revolutionary Socialists, all of which have members currently detained by authorities.

According to Ali, 42 April 6 members are currently in detention on an array of what he described as "politicized" charges.

Ahmed Maher, April 6 leader, is currently serving out a three-year jail term for staging an "unlicensed" protest.

At the time of the "protest," Maher had been turning himself in to authorities to answer charges that he had assaulted a policeman and organized a protest without prior official authorization.

A new law makes it necessary for protest organizers to secure the approval of the Interior Ministry before staging demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch has described the new legislation as a "carte blanche" for authorities to suppress public displays of dissent.  

Maher had been a leader of Egypt's youth-fueled 2011 uprising, which ended the 30-year rule of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Along with two other prominent youth activists jailed on the same charges, Maher had supported last summer's mass protests that led to the ouster of Morsi – Egypt's first freely elected president.

The army-backed government's ensuing crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies has recently widened to include dissidents of all political stripes.

A recent report by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), a local NGO, documented 21,317 cases of people who had been subject to prosecution since Morsi's ouster.

According to the report, 16,387 of these involved people arrested for participating in political activities (i.e., street protests, etc).

The NGO said that 2,129 of these were school and university students; 327 were minors (under 18 years of age); 239 were women; 156 were university professors; 181 were foreign nationals; and 81 were journalists.

Youth activists accuse the authorities of reviving the Mubarak-era police state and waging a vicious smear campaign against the symbols of the 2011 uprising.

Campaign

Ola al-Bashir, coordinator of the Strong Egypt Party's freedoms committee, has followed the case of 14 detained party members.

She is concerned about the possible sabotage of Tuesday's protest by those she described as "government-linked infiltrators."

According to al-Bashir, this has happened repeatedly at previous pro-detainees solidarity rallies.

"I personally noticed the same people acting provocatively at different past protests," she told AA.

"I'm worried that Tuesday's rally might even end with more arrests," said al-Bashir, citing the government's apparent zero-tolerance of protests which culminated in the new protest law and the designation mof the Muslim Brotherhood as a "terrorist organization" late last year.

Tuesday's human chain isn't the only activity aimed at raising awareness about Egypt's detainees.

A group of young Islamist cyber-activists, dubbed "Ahd al-Thawra" ("Pledge of the Revolution"), launched an online awareness campaign on Saturday, which it designated "Egyptian Detainees' Day."

"We're campaigning for the rights of political detainees regardless of their religious or political affiliations," the group said on its Facebook page.

"Politics have divided us," it added. "Let's unite in the name of human rights, which should be guaranteed to all Egyptians."Top of Form

Documented abuses

Both Ali and al-Bashir say they have gathered testimony of gross human rights violations – which in many cases have amounted to torture – from both previously and currently detained colleagues.

"We've submitted the testimony to the prosecutor-general for investigation, but received no response," Ali said.

There have been widespread reports of mistreatment and torture being carried out in Egyptian detention facilities.

Last week, the pro-Morsi alliance said it had collected testimony from four young girls who said they had been raped while in custody.

Many detainees who have since been released have also spoken out publicly in recent weeks, saying they had been subjected to various prison abuses.

Fadi Samir, who said he was randomly arrested in January, said he and a group of other detainees had been beaten and sexually assaulted by Homeland Security officers while in detention.

"[The investigator] would ask me a question and if he didn't like my answer he'd call one of the guards and he would bare my back and beat me," Samir told a Cairo press conference organized earlier this week by the Nidal Center for Rights and Freedoms, a local rights watchdog.

"We were beaten all over our bodies and then groped and sexually violated," he alleged.

Samir, a young Coptic Christian, said he was grilled on accusations of being a member of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

"It's easy now to conduct random arrests, fabricate charges and portray detainees as 'terrorists' or 'saboteurs' in the media," al-Bashir lamented.

According to the ECESR report, 50 detainees have died inside Egyptian detention facilities since Morsi's ouster almost eight months ago.

Egyptian authorities continue to deny that any political detainees are being prosecuted, insisting that all those currently being held face criminal charges.

Earlier this week, outgoing interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim said he was "deeply saddened" by the "baseless rumors" of arbitrary arrest and torture in Egypt.

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