Egyptian Police Accused of Torturing Protester

CONTINUING TO LOOK AT TORTURE ACROSS THE GLOBE.

Police in Egypt have been accused of torturing and sexually abusing a man after he was arrested last week at a peaceful demonstration.

The few people who have been allowed to see Mohammed el-Sharqawi since he was arrested have said that every inch of his body is covered with bruises, cuts and welts.

One of his lawyers, Gamal Eid, told reporters that the defense team nearly cried when they saw him on the night he was arrested - he was a different person than the man they had seen that morning.

"We could not see his eyes because they were so swollen. He could barely speak through his battered mouth. There were shoe prints on his neck and chest," said Eid.

The lawyer says Sharqawi was examined by a doctor Sunday, after 72 hours in police custody, but has received no medical treatment. His injuries are believed to be severe, and possibly life-threatening.

Other political detainees say they are going on a hunger strike until he is treated, and until the people who beat him are held accountable.

VOA's phone calls to several Interior Ministry spokesmen went unanswered. The ministry has issued terse statements to a few other news organizations denying the allegations of torture.

Sharqawi and his colleague Karim el-Shaer were arrested Thursday after a peaceful demonstration. Both men had been released from prison only days earlier, after being jailed for participating in earlier anti-government protests.

Eyewitnesses said both of them were beaten severely in the street by plainclothes security agents known locally as baltagaya, or thugs.

The prosecutor has ordered that they be held in custody for 15 days.

Sharqawi has managed to sneak a note out of prison that is being circulated on the internet.

Another activist, Ahmed El-Droubi, shared a cell with Sharqawi for 28 days before they were both released last week. He visited his old cell mates in prison on Saturday, after a bruised and battered Sharqawi had re-joined them.

"And I saw him. He was physically destroyed. Psychologically, he was very roughed-up ... He is urinating blood. They actually stomped and kicked his sexual organs until he peed blood right there while they were torturing him. But after all that, he is still strong. He still smiles. Definitely, he was broken inside, but he still believes in what he is doing, and he will not stop," he said.

El-Sharqawi is a member of a group called Youth For Change, an offshoot of the reform movement known as Kifaya, which is Arabic for Enough.

Kifaya leader George Ishak denounced the treatment of Mohammed el-Sharqawi. "This thuggery … these crimes will not stop us. If we remain silent in the face of these violations, then we are all violated," he said.

More than 500 activists have been arrested during the past five weeks for participating in demonstrations in support of the independence of the judiciary.

Even having heard of all of this, the Bush administration - despite the protestations of some House appropriations committee members over Egypt's human rights record - is backing renewing the $1.7-billion economic and military aid package for Egypt that the US provides, saying that good relations with Egypt are vital to the US's economic interests.

Well, at least he's not a hypocrite. We should be thankful for small mercies. He can hardly condemn others for emulating the same practices employed by his security forces.

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