ESIS slams Human Rights Watch report, describes it as biased

CAIRO – 11 September 2017: The Chairman of the Egypt State Information Service (ESIS) Diaa Rashwan held a press conference on Monday to display its views on the report issued on September 5 by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleging security forces in Egypt of committing widespread torture.

Here is the statement by the ESIS chairman:

Before presenting the State Information Service's view on the latest report of Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Egypt, we stress the following facts regarding Egypt and the human rights profile in general:

(1)Egypt was one of the 48 countries that agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, while 8 states abstained from voting and 2 states did not vote.

(2)Egypt is among the top states in ratifying the 18 international human rights conventions, ratifying 10 of them, equal in this with Japan, and surpassing Israel (9 ratifications), the United States of America and Malaysia (5 ratifications each).


(3)Egypt has actively participated, since the establishment of the United Nations, in all its human rights bodies, whether those were based on the Charter of the United Nations or those based on the ten core international human rights treaties.

(4)Egypt participated in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) since it was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006, and was subjected to it in 2010 and 2014. In the last review in 2014, there were 300 recommendations made by Member States on the human rights situation in Egypt: Egypt rejected only 23 of them, declared the awareness of 29 other recommendations, and approved 248 recommendations; 224 of which were fully supported and 24 others were partially supported. Next year, 2018, the UN mechanism will review Egypt's implementation of these recommendations.


(5)Egypt's government and society are committed to the constitution of the country, which the people agreed to in January 2014, and which is considered the most advanced in the history of Egyptian constitutions concerning human rights and freedoms. The constitution assigns about a quarter of its 247 articles to affirm the basic human rights in the fields of private and public freedoms, politics, assembling and economy. This included the criminalization of torture and discrimination, the destruction of human dignity and the violation of private life, as well as an affirmation of all freedoms of expression, publication, creativity, belief, movement, property, labor, strike and the rule of law.

(6) In the last few years, has witnessed unprecedented changes in its long history; two revolutions took place on 25 January 2011 and on 30 June 2013. The two revolutions led to the overthrow, for the first time in history, of two presidents and their systems. The two presidents were subjected to trial and imprisonment by the will of the people and not by coups of palaces, even though it may seem similar to previous events. Egypt is now in the process of rebuilding itself as a modern state with all the components present in developed nations. It is a difficult stage, which many nations experience, during which all things and conditions are not complete and perfect. Some obstacles remained until they were swept away by the tide of development.


About the Report
The previous introduction is an integral and fundamental part of the general and detailed observations on the last report issued last week by Human Rights Watch on Egypt, which are divided into the following:

Title and Topic: A Biased Political Position, Not Human Rights
•The well-known traditions of respectable human rights organizations' reports have been established to cover either a period of time (annual, semi-annual, quarterly or monthly) or to specialize in a particular subject over a reasonable period of time. Although the report has attempted to give the impression that it tackles the subject of alleged torture in Egypt, it chose a completely political, and unprofessional title, "under the rule of al-Sisi." This political title is meant to defame President Sisi's rule, when in fact no date mentioned in the report matches those of the president's administration. The conclusion of his presidential term is still nine months away and the president has not started a new term yet to have HRW assess his tenure after as though it has ended.

•This deliberate distortion to the image of the rule in Egypt stems from being biased to the Brotherhood’s allegations that the Army had toppled the former President Mohamed Morsi. The report ignored the popular revolution of millions of Egyptians on June 30 and July 3, 2013 rejecting the authoritarian religious rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. Such biased political judgments and accusations did neither come in the end or even in the middle of the report, but rather in the first two paragraphs of the first page.


•The first paragraph described the regime of President Sisi which has been leading the country since July 2013 as being “authoritarian”. According to the second paragraph, and far from any professional standards in the Human Rights reports, it mentions that “al-Sisi tried to attain political stability regardless of the price.” The report was formulated in a rhetoric that could only be found in statements of political opposition.

Methodology: Breaking down Human Rights Traditions, and the Brotherhood is the only Source
The report mentioned in its very first lines that it had been methodically prepared… however, there are several professional observations salient which are:

•The report mentioned that a single researcher from the organization had conducted all the meetings with the allegedly tortured victims; thus contradicting the methodological principles of preparing such critical reports which necessitates that such visits should be made by a working team and not a single person, to ensure the accuracy of the information on the one hand, and avoid any possible partiality from any single researcher on the other hand.

•Within the framework of preparing this report, the organization did not refer to any subsequent stages of verification to certify the data collected by the single researcher in his alleged meetings; thus contradicting the established rules of the professional methodology of such reports.


•The report did not indicate that the single researcher had recorded or documented his alleged meetings with the 19 persons by any means, or that such persons had signed on their words or had presented any written approval on using their words in this report.

•The report did not identify the locations of the alleged meetings; whether such meetings had been held in private or public places, in open or closed areas, or whether they had been held in the form of collective or individual meetings. It is systematically known in this respect that the place of the meeting and the number of attendees could have a strong influence on the mentioned information, i.e., if such a place is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, then the meeting will be directed in a pro- Muslim Brotherhood political track and hostile to the current Egyptian political regime.


•What is even more obscure in this report, is that its only researcher was able, on his own, and with seemingly miraculous abilities, to reach those 19 persons across sparsely populated areas of Egypt and within a limited period of time, without referring to the kind of assistance he received in order to reach them that easily in a country with a population of around 93 million citizens. It is also clear from the data mentioned in the report that all the 19 persons are members of, or report to, the Muslim Brotherhood. Thereupon, the researcher would not have been able to reach them without the help of the Brotherhood themselves, thus explaining the blatant political partiality against the regime in Egypt.

•The sole researcher took the information he had garnered from the alleged victims as undeniable facts, neglecting to document the alleged injured cases, whether by photos, medical certificates or official minutes. Instead, the organization published a 1:46 minute video of cartoons on what they imagined to be torture in Egypt. Contradicting the traditions of respectable organizations in cases of alleged injuries resulting from torture, especially the kind of torture that cannot be concealed such as the removal of nails, the report did not mention that a specialized doctor had accompanied the researcher to view such cases, or that they had visited a hospital or a specialized clinic in this respect.


•The report in its majority is based on the biased passive statements about human rights in Egypt from one source, The Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedom. It is a political organization affiliated to the Brotherhood that acts under a cover of human rights. It was established in August 2014 and is considered the Egyptian branch of what is called The International Coordination to Support Rights and Freedoms, that was established in Doha on October 9, 2013 upon a decision taken by what is called the International Conference of the World amid a Coup against the Will and Free Choice of the People, held in Istanbul on September25-26, 2013. The media-woman Marwa Abu Zeid was the spokesperson at the Brotherhood’s channel, Misr 25, and their Rasd network, when it was established.

•Conventional methodologies in writing human rights reports have established the use of impartial terms to scrutinize the accounts until proven true, such as using the terms “claimed” or “alleged”. This politicized report, however, did not employ any of these impartial terms, rather it presented all accusations as confirmed and proven facts.


•The report’s methodology insisted on neglecting all valuable reports, released by major human rights organizations, which totally or partially contradict its allegations. The reports ignored include those released by the National Council for Human Rights, and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, concerning the allegations of torture or compulsory disappearance or killing without legal reasons or others.

•Finally, and amidst this biased report against the Egyptian authorities, those who prepared it in the duration of one year and seven months, during which they completed it since the beginning of the claimed meetings, have not sought to become acquainted with the vision of the official Egyptian authorities in regards to the reports of those who claimed torture.

Moreover, they did not mention that they asked for an interview with any Egyptian official and that that request was turned down. However, to avoid being blamed, they sufficed by publishing two messages, sent to the Egyptian Prosecutor General and Interior Minister on May 23, 2017, and failed to state any details on the cases mentioned in the report for a reply, but rather sent a general summary of all alleged torture accounts.

Information: Fabrication and Concealment
•The report contained a large number of fallacies and misleading information, apparently intended to convey the political message which its title bore, namely, the accusation and condemnation of the Egyptian regime led by President Sisi against the systematic violation of human rights.

•The report, in order to achieve the same target, also deliberately ignored the reference to the type of static information whose publication will corrupt its political objective. Salient of these types of information are the following:


•The report deliberately ignores completely all acts of terrorism and killings in Egypt that have occurred in a systematic way since 2013 by the Brotherhood's terrorist groups and other violent organizations, so that alleged cases of torture appear isolated from the general context. This does not mean that the existence of such a state of terrorism can justify, in our view, even one case of torture, but the reference to it and its victims who have lost their lives, which is the first human right, is the duty of any respectable report on these rights.

The report, also, ignored the number of martyrs of Egyptian civilians caused by terrorist operations since January 2013 until present, which has exceeded 700 martyrs, while the wounded number three times higher. In addition several hundreds of martyrs and casualties of the army have died as a consequence of these terroristic acts, alongside the number of police martyrs that has reached approximately 1,000 and the wounded that has reached about 20,000, and six judges, of which the Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat was one of them.

•On page 12 of the Arabic version, the report mentioned the Itihadeya incident that took place on the December 5, 2012, when armed groups of the Muslim Brotherhood attacked, detained, and tortured a number of peaceful protesters, who opposed the former President Mohamed Morsi. The report deliberately did not mention the term “torture” despite the availability of dozens of videos on this incident and the torture that was inflicted in it the issuance of judicial rulings condemning the perpetrators of the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the report of this organization, which claims its concern for the freedom of the press and the protection of journalists, has completely ignored mentioning the fall of the most prominent press martyr Husseini Abu Deif by the Muslim Brotherhood in these events, while he was on duty as a press photographer, however, the report pointed out that there were 8 Morsi supporters killed on the day.


•On page 14 of the Arabic version as well as many other contexts, the report asserts in a completely false way that "among the hundreds of allegations raised against members and officers of the Ministry of Interior since July 2013, the Prosecutor General has investigated officially only 40 cases, of which only 7 were sentenced and of those, six cases involved 13 police officers who were found guilty by the criminal courts.

•However, the report didn’t point that the Court of Appeal upheld these sentences until the preparation of this report. Until now, there is no court in Egypt’s modern history that issues any of convictions on an element or officer belonging to the National Security. The true information in this regard during such a period, is that the Court of Cassation which is the Egyptian judicial system, upheld completely the imprisonment of two police officers, and two non-commissioned police officers for 3 years in a torturing case and other two non-commissioned police officers for 10 years in another case as well as a police officer for 5 years in a different case.

•Moreover, the criminal courts issued various judgments of conviction and imprisonment for about 60 police officers, non-commissioned police officers and police conscripts. All these cases are still under the consideration of the Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation and retrial. Some 45 of the police officers from different ranks stand before the courts and prosecution investigations until now. The numbers of condemned and accused police officers in torturing cases or violation of human rights cases, are considered a minority compared to the huge number of police officers, which is estimated at 40,000 personnel in addition to about 300,000 non-commissioned police officers and police conscripts under the Interior Ministry.

•On page 22 of the Arabic version, the report mentioned the case of Omar Al-Shoykh who was arrested on March 24, 2014, at which point President al-Sisi had not assumed office yet. Again confirming the political target of the organization that aims to accuse and distort his regime.


•On page 31 of the Arabic version, the report mentioned Khaled’s case from Alexandria. Surprisingly, the military prosecution which is the organization that is affiliated to the Armed Forces, the President’s military and military rule, and the organization responsible for the said torture, released him. The report supposed the organization to be crueller towards the accused person than is actually true.

•In all the 19 cases mentioned in the report, its writers, purposely, did not completely point out the accusations made to the allegedly tortured persons, in order for the reader to sympathize with them. Highlighting the seriousness of accusations and facts does not mean we accept the torture or abuse of any accused person, but is only meant to serve all facts to the reader. The accusations are varied among killing, bombing, burning and assassination.

Final General Remarks
In addition to what was mentioned before, there is a number of salient final and general remarks about the report which are:

-The first general remark about what was mentioned in the report and about the claimed torture in prisons for the Muslim Brotherhood prisoners and other terrorist groups, is related to what used to happen during the rule of the former President Hosni Mubarak.

The defendants and their lawyers would raise the issue of torture in nearly all terrorist cases in the trial sessions and demanded the conducting of legal medical examinations on prisoners. The courts took into consideration these claims several times and disregarded confessions before the trial just as in the Major Jihad Organization case in 1981, where 301 were accused. Considering hundreds of cases, where the Brotherhood were judged post-June 30 Revolution in 2013, security torture was not mentioned except for five Brotherhood leaders in two cases and the court responded and referred them to legal medical examination, where investigations were not finished. This result assured the inaccuracy of the Brotherhood’s torture claims and this report. However, if this claimed report was accurate, it would give the chance for Brotherhood convicts to nullify their verdicts on the one hand, and political condemnation and international defamation for the ruling regime on the other hand, which did not happen.

-The report referred to two cases only from those who claimed torture in the trial and they were from the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL). This is not out of the context of ISIL members cases, as they are the majority of those who claim torture, and in trials four times, which is similar to what peer violent groups carried out in Mubarak's era as mentioned before. Here a contradiction in the report presents itself about the defendants accounts on the claimed torture that was made before the persecution which refused to approve it, as they claimed as well, and which was also not mentioned before the court that opened its doors for media and public opinion.

-Finally, if we suppose that all of the report’s contents are true about claimed torture cases, that means that a year and seven months of investigations and researches of the major international organization with its capabilities and experience, about torture in al-Sisi's era which according to the report is 3 years and 3 months of his presidential term until now, produced only 19 cases. If any of them prove true, it shall be categorically rejected.


-If we take into consideration the number of prisoners claimed by the organization which it estimated at tens of thousands, the weakness of the ratio of the claimed torture was highlighted. The numbers, ratios and periods assured that there is no systematic torture in Egypt except for rare individual cases, where the law must be enforced nevertheless.