Egypt's army draws fire over military trials

Reuters
Dina Rayed

Actor Aly Sobhy's trial in an Egyptian military court lasted just 20 minutes, hours after he was detained in March with more than 160 other protesters in central Cairo.

He was among a score of lucky ones acquitted of charges of "thuggery" after a campaign for their release. But he spent four days in custody and now questions the army's intentions.

"There are thousands of youth held in military prisons simply for the reason that they were on the street at the wrong time. It's a plan to dismantle the revolution. If they arrest some, others will be scared to go protest," he told Reuters.

Anger at the army's handling of the transition to civilian rule is growing. Demonstrators camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square say the army is taking too long to purge the system and end the corrupt practices of the Hosni Mubarak era.

Protesters cite the widespread use of military courts to try civilians, a common practice under the ousted president and since adopted by the army council led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for two decades.

Even under Mubarak, civilians subjected to military trials were often suspects in security cases, particularly during an armed Islamist uprising in the 1990s, not common criminals.

Rights groups and activists say the wholesale use of military trials in the last few months calls into question the willingness of the army council, which took over after Mubarak resigned in February, to transform Egypt into a democracy.

The military says such trials are reserved for serious crimes and not to quash freedom of expression. But activists and rights groups point to at least six incidents of random arrests to disperse demonstrations in the past few months.

"The military has shown itself to be guilty of many of the same practices used under the Mubarak regime," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center.

"Being condemned to prison for protesting is the complete opposite of what people are calling for in Tahrir Square."

EMERGENCY SITUATION

Rights groups say the trials undermine the rule of law and hinder an orderly transition, arguing that it was better to use the civilian judicial system, despite its flaws and slower pace.

At least 10,000 civilians have faced military trials since the uprising that toppled Mubarak, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other rights groups.

Charges vary from petty theft to violent crime. Sentences can be tough. A shop-owner was sentenced to seven years in jail after a tribunal convicted him of stealing four pairs of shoes and a mobile phone card. He denied the charge.

The army accepts the principle, enshrined in international law, that military courts should not try civilians, but says they are needed temporarily to handle Egypt's security problems.

"No civilian should be tried in front of military courts," General Mamdouh Shaheen of the ruling military council told reporters. "But in this emergency situation ... military courts took the place of civilian courts until they were able to work."

In response to criticism, the generals have now offered a contact numbers for queries and complaints on past convictions. For Sobhy and others, such offers are inadequate.

"Their insistence on defending military justice is a problem," Adel Ramadan, a human rights lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said. "This is a policy that the armed forces has adopted and it is not willing to give it up."

Egyptian authorities must allow peaceful protest and the right to strike

Amnesty International

The Egyptian authorities must abolish a recent law criminalizing peaceful protests and strikes, Amnesty International said ahead of tomorrow's planned protests for International Workers' Day in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The organization called for workers' rights to be protected, as protesters gather to demand the lifting of restrictions on forming trade unions, the introduction of an adequate minimum wage and the reinstatement of co-workers dismissed for their trade union activities.

"The authorities must seize this historic moment of reform in Egypt and commit to protecting workers' rights in the country," said Amnesty International.

"The protesters' legitimate demands are not new, but this is a fresh opportunity for the Egyptian authorities to abide by their obligations and act positively on them".

"A first step would be to scrap the law banning strikes and to allow independent trade unions to operate freely."

Sunday's gathering is being planned by trade unions, political parties and women's groups, human rights organizations as well as the "popular committees for the defence of the revolution".

Among the triggers of the 25 January uprising in Egypt that led to the fall of former President Mubarak were calls for an end to poverty, and demands for social justice and dignity.

During 2010, thousands of protests, strikes and sit-ins were staged by Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors, protesting the rising cost of living and demanding better wages and working conditions.

But a new law which entered into force on 12 April this year criminalizes demonstrations and strikes and places protesters at risk of imprisonment and heavy fines.

Law No. 34 of 2011 stipulates a prison sentence and a fine of up to 50,000 Egyptian Pounds (about US$8,400) for anyone who takes part in or encourages others to join a sit-in or any other activity that prevents, delays or disrupts the work of public institutions or public authorities.

If there is any violence or if protests damage public and private property, lead to the "destruction of means of production" or cause harm to "national unity and public security and order" , the fine rises to 500,000 Egyptian Pounds (about US$84,000) with at least a year's imprisonment.

Amnesty International said that such vaguely worded provisions were in breach of international law. The right to strike is guaranteed under Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to which Egypt is a state party.

The organization said that the Egyptian authorities also have a duty to uphold the right to peaceful assembly under Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"The adoption of this law at a moment where people are seeking to realize their demands for more human rights and dignity and preserve the achievement of the uprising is a major setback," said Amnesty International.

"The law stands at odds with the demands of many Egyptians and Egypt's international human rights obligation and must be repealed immediately."

In its Egypt: Human Rights Agenda for Change, Amnesty International calls for workers' rights to be upheld.

Egypt's emergency law must be removed, Amnesty says

Irish Times
Michael Jensen

According to rights activists, 5,000
protesters have been arrested
since the uprising began.

REPEAL OF Egypt’s emergency law remains the most urgent demand of the democracy movement that ousted president Hosni Mubarak. In a 79-page report, Time for Justice: Egypt’s Corrosive System of Detention , Amnesty International reveals why Egyptians repeatedly return to Cairo’s Tahrir Square to achieve this goal.

The military-dominated caretaker government has promised to end the state of emergency before parliamentary elections in autumn and has formally dissolved the infamous State Security Investigations Service (SSI). But Egyptians will not be satisfied until the law that gave the SSI a free hand is expunged from the books and officers account for detention, harsh treatment and torture.

Amnesty is concerned instead of facing justice, former officers are “likely to have been . . . integrated into other security bodies, including the newly established national intelligence body, without any vetting mechanism.”

Amnesty asserts, “To uproot the culture of human rights abuses and impunity in Egypt, the decades of human rights violations under the rule of president Hosni Mubarak must be addressed and measures taken to ensure truth, justice and reparation for victims . . . Holding SSI officers to account is an essential initial step.”

Amnesty says the June 2010 beating to death in public by police officers of Alexandrian businessman Khaled Said (28) marked a turning point for Egyptian rights activists who created the Facebook site “We are all Khaled Said” that launched the uprising.

“This brutal killing happened”, the report says, “just two weeks after the government renewed for a further two years the state of emergency” in force since 1981.

The focus of the report is the use of administrative detention – imprisonment without trial such as employed by Britain in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. In Egypt, this instrument has been used to hold for long periods “tens of thousands” of people, the vast majority political prisoners.

The wide use of this measure, Amnesty says, “has affected Egyptians of all walks of life, reinforcing the repressive atmosphere fostered by the authorities”.

While administrative detainees were not charged or tried, they were treated like sentenced prisoners, tortured, abused, denied medical care and often sent to prisons far from their families.
The emergency law facilitated enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and “restrictions on the rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly. Among those targeted . . . have been political opponents and government critics, human rights defenders, members of minority religious communities, journalists and bloggers.” Amnesty calls on the Egyptian authorities to identify individuals held in administrative detention, abolish the emergency law and administrative detention and release all uncharged administrative detainees and prisoners of conscience.

According to rights activists, 5,000 protesters have been arrested since the uprising began.

Egypt blogger gets 3 years for criticizing army

 BusinessWeek
 

An Egyptian military tribunal has convicted a blogger of insulting the army after he publicized reports of abuses by the military, and sentenced him to three years in prison, human rights groups said Monday.

The military court issued the sentence against Maikel Nabil Sanad, 26, a day earlier in the absence of his lawyers, according to a statement by seven Cairo-based rights groups.
It was the first trial of a blogger by Egypt's military rulers, who took charge of the country after former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted by anti-government protests Feb. 11 after an 18-day popular uprising.

Rights lawyers say the sentence has wide implications for freedom of expression in post-Mubarak Egypt, and could set a precedent for anyone seeking to expose wrongdoing or abuses by the military.
A member of the military council, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Assar told an Egyptian private TV station, ONTV, Monday, the armed forces is open to criticism.

"There is a difference between criticism with good intentions from a citizen, a journalist or a broadcaster, who mean the public good. There is no problem with that," he said. "The problem is in questioning the intentions (of the army)."

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said it was "shocked" by the three-year jail sentence, asking the authorities to review it and free him "without delay."

The case against Sanad, who was arrested two weeks ago at his home, was based on a blog post titled "The people and the army were never hand in hand," questioning the military's continued allegiance to Mubarak; as well as Facebook postings reporting allegations of abuse.

"Maikel was posting on his blog news published by rights groups, and newspaper clippings" among other things, said Adel Ramadan, Sanad's lawyer. "The danger extends to all bloggers, rights activists and journalists."

Rights groups have criticized the new military rulers for arbitrary arrests and speedy trials for civilians, saying their activities were reminiscent of those of the former regime.
Ramadan said more than 10,000 civilians have been convicted and sentenced by military tribunals since the army took over two months ago.

Military trials are swift, do not follow the procedures and rules of evidence of civil courts and their sentences cannot be appealed.

Ramadan was quoting official court records and military statements and included cases involving minor theft, land disputes, as well as demonstrating and weapons possession.
Most Egyptians expressed joy when the military stepped in to remove Mubarak, chanting the slogan "the military and the people go hand in hand," but tension has since crept into the army's relations with the population.

In the early hours of the morning Saturday, soldiers forcefully stormed a protest camp on to break up a sit-in, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding dozens. The protesters had been critical of the military.

Volleys of gunfire rang through the streets of downtown Cairo for hours until the military withdrew at sunrise.

Soldiers arrested 42 civilians, including two foreigners, all of whom are now facing military tribunals. Eleven were later released, including the foreign nationals.

Around a thousand protesters have now started a new sit-in at the country's iconic Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding the resignation of the minister of defense and head of the army, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi.

Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said Sanad's case also shows that the military cannot be criticized.

"It sets the military up as an establishment beyond criticism and beyond being held accountable," she said. "It sends exactly the wrong signal at a time when you are supposed to be transitioning away from abusive practices combined with official denial and failure to investigate."

It was also the harshest sentence against a blogger since 2004, when one was convicted of insulting the former president and offending Islam and sentenced to four years in prison.