Egypt accused of torture

2005-02-22 14:45

Cairo - Security police are still detaining as many as 2 400 people who are suspected in the bombings that devastated the Taba Hilton hotel last October, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday.

Some of the detainees have been tortured, and all have been held for about 16 weeks without access to lawyers or their families - a violation of Egyptian law, the New York-based rights group said.

"Egyptian security forces responded to the Taba atrocity by committing mass human rights abuses," said Joe Stork, the Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.

In a 48-page report titled "Mass Arrests and Torture in Sinai," Human Rights Watch accuses the government of a lack of transparency. The state has neither released the detainees' names, nor told their families where they are held, nor said whether they are charged with anything, the report said.

Not the first time

Cabinet spokesperson Magdy Rady received a copy of the report, but did not comment.

The government has never given the number of people detained since the October 7 bombings at the Sinai resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan. The bombs, which killed 34 people and destroyed a wing of the Taba hotel, were the first significant terrorist attacks in Egypt since the 1997 massacre of tourists at Luxor.

About 500 relatives and friends staged a protest against the prolonged detention of their loved ones in the north Sinai town of el-Arish on January 28. Three police officers and about 10 protesters were reportedly injured in clashes with police.

Early this month, the state released 90 of the detainees, a fact that Human Rights Watch mentions in its report.

In an interview, Stork said the 2 400 figure was an estimate based on the work of several Egyptian human rights organisations.

"This is not the first time this has happened," Stork said, referring to the mass arrests during the Islamic insurrection of the 1990s.

He said he could not explain the large number of detainees.

"It may indicate that the government, in fact, does not know who carried out the attacks and who else might be involved," Stork said.

The government said in October that the mastermind of the bombings, who was killed in the attacks, was a Palestinian driven by anger against Israel. Many Israeli tourists visit the Sinai resorts.

The government said it had detained five others implicated in the bombings, but that none of the culprits belonged to any larger militant group, such as al-Qaeda.

Human Rights Watch said a 26-year-old former detainee, who refused to be identified, had told its interviewers that State Security Investigation officers had bound his hands and suspended him from the top of an iron door, "causing excruciating pain to his shoulders." The officers then gave him electric shocks through wires attached to his toes, according to the account. - AP

- SAPA