US fully aware of Police Brutality in Egypt (Jan 15, 2009)

Posted on January 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

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US Diplomatic Cable (WikiLeaks)

“Summary and comment:  Police brutality in Egypt against common criminals is routine and pervasive.  Contacts describe the police using force to extract confessions from criminals as a daily event, resulting from poor training and
understaffing.  Brutality against Islamist detainees has reportedly decreased overall, but security forces still resort to torturing Muslim Brotherhood activists who are deemed to pose a political threat.  Over the past five years,
the government has stopped denying that torture exists, and since late 2007 courts have sentenced approximately 15 police officers to prison terms for torture and killings. Independent NGOs have criticized GOE-led efforts to provide human rights training for the police as ineffective and
lacking political will.  The GOE has not yet made a serious effort to transform the police from an instrument of regime  power into a public service institution.  We want to continue a USG-funded police training program (ref F), and to look for
other ways to help the GOE address police brutality.  End summary and comment.”

Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread.  The police use brutal methods mostly against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate
bystanders.  One human rights lawyer told us there is evidence of torture in Egypt dating back to the times of the Pharaohs.  NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds
of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone.  Egyptians are bombarded with consistent news reports of police brutality, ranging from high profile incidents such
as accidental but lethal police shootings in Salamut and Aswan this past fall (refs B and C) that sparked riots, to reports of police officers shooting civilians following disputes over traffic tickets.  In November 2008 alone, there
were two incidents of off-duty police officers shooting and killing civilians over petty disputes.  The cases against both officers are currently making their way through the judicial system.

¶3. (C) NGO and academic contacts from across the political spectrum report witnessing police brutality as part of their daily lives.  One academic at XXXXXXXXXXXX who is a member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)
policy committee told us of accompanying his sister to a Cairo police station to report her stolen purse.  In front of this academic, the police proceeded to beat a female suspect
into confessing about others involved in the theft and the whereabouts of the stolen valuables.  A contact from an international NGO described witnessing police beat the doorman of an upscale Cairo apartment building into disclosing the apartment number of a suspect.  Another
contact at a human rights NGO told us that her friends do not report thefts from their apartments because they do not want to subject “all the doormen” in the vicinity to police beatings.  She told us that the police’s use of force has
pervaded Egyptian culture to the extent that one popular television soap opera recently featured a police detective hero who beats up suspects to collect evidence.

¶4. (C) Contacts attribute police brutality to poor training, understaffing and official sanction.  Human rights lawyer XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX speculated that officers routinely resort to brutality
because of pressure from their superiors to solve crimes.  He asserted that most officers think solving crimes justifies brutal interrogation methods, and that some policemen believe that Islamic law sanctions torture.  XXXXXXXXXXXX commented that a culture of judicial impunity for police officers enables continued brutality.  According to XXXXXXXXXXXX, “Police officers feel they are above the law and protected by the public prosecutor.”  Human rights lawyer XXXXXXXXXXXX attributed police brutality against common criminals, including the use of electric shocks, to the problem of demoralized officers facing long hours and their own economic problems.  He asserted that the police will even beat lawyers who enter police stations to defend their clients.

Egypt severs internet connection amid growing unrest

Internet connections across Egypt appear to have been cut, as authorities gear up for a day of mass protest. Net analysis firms and web watchers have reported that the vast majority of the country’s internet has become unreachable. The unprecedented crack down will leave millions of Egyptians without internet access. There have been unprecedented protest in the country over the past few days – much of it co-ordinated via the web. According to internet monitoring firm Renesys, shortly before 2300 GMT on 27 January virtually all routes to Egyptian networks were simultaneously withdrawn from the internet’s global routing table. That meant that virtually all of Egypt’s internet addresses were unreachable. Egyptian authorities seem to have manged this by shutting down official Domain Name Servers (DNS) in Egypt. These act as address books and are consulted by web browsing software to find out the location of a site a user wants to visit. Messages circulating in Egypt pointed people towards unofficial DNS servers so they could get back online.

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