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16/6/2002
report
"Members of one Family are under detention."
EOHR's third report on the phenomenon of recurrent detention in Egypt
2002
Recommendations
1. To stop applying the emergency law no. 162 of 1985. It is certain now that applying this law continuously for twenty years did not end violent and terrorist acts. It rather spreads these acts and gave security forces broad exceptional powers which enabled them to disregard civil and political rights, which was manifested mainly in the broad random detention campaigns, illegal detention for long periods after serving the given sentence or getting final acquittal or release orders, the recurrent detention of thousands of persons, and taking hostages to force the wanted persons to give themselves up to the police.
2. in case the Egyptian government continues applying the emergency law, the EOHR calls on competent authorities to amend its provisions so that to conform with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In this regard, the following legislative changes are suggested:
- to cancel article three of the emergency law which allows the detention of suspected persons. In fact, suspicion is not enough to penalize a person.
- to stick to the judicial standards regarding the criteria for considering a person dangerous to security or public order.
- to revoke law 50 of 1982 which made it the jurisdiction of the supreme state security courts for emergency, rather than the administrative judiciary, to hear challenges made against detention orders. This is a violation of the constitution, and of the ICCPR. Also in the case when a citizen resorts to his natural judge, the High Court and afterwards the High Constitutional Court pronounced lots of decisions, which stress this right as a natural right protected by the constitution. The "right to resort to the natural judge" means that every citizen has the right to prosecution, and this right can not be implemented to protect human rights unless given to the natural judge, to whom the citizen resorts.
- to amend article 3 bis of the emergency law so that detainees would be given the right to challenge court rulings rejecting their release, before a higher court.
- to cancel the power of the administration to reject release orders.
- to ratify the optional protocol attached to the ICCPR, which gives the right to the human rights committee to hear complaints made by individuals whose civil and political rights have been violated.
3. to issue the two declarations pointed to in articles 21 and 22 of the International Convention Against Torture, which would allow the committee against torture to hear complaints made by states or individuals against states who disregard their commitments stipulated in the convention.
4. To release all detainees who have been recurrently detained in violation of court rulings which released or acquitted them. This is to respect the rule of law, and court rulings.
5. That the Ministry of the Interior announce the exact number of those detained in Egyptian prisons. Such an official announcement should also include the reasons behind the detention, and the number of times the person has been recurrently detained, and the reasons.
6. To make prisons report to the Ministry of Justice rather than the Ministry of the Interior, and to enact a law to apply the system of the judicial police which would be entitled to the judicial arrest, and would be charged of managing work inside prisons.
7. To activate the practical role of the Public Prosecution in inspecting prisons, and to expand this role so that to include inspecting other places of detention such as central security squads, state security investigation offices, police stations, and security directorates in Cairo and other governorates.
8. To apply the provisions included in the Code of Criminal Procedures, which prohibit that officials exist in prisons, or contact prisoners or preventive prisoners or other similar detained people.
9. To allow the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights to visit prisons to inspect the conditions of detainees.
10. To form an independent and partial committee to start immediate investigations into all reports and complaints received from detainees and their families and lawyers regarding being denied the right to visits, to education, to medical care, and sufficient food; and to investigate also into the complaints received on the practice of torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners. The committee should announce the results of its investigations and held accountable those responsible for the violations.
11. To ameliorate the conditions of Egyptian prisons, and guarantee the right of detainees to be treated like those in preventive detention as stated by the law. Mainly among these rights is to have the right to correspondence, receiving visits, education, receiving medical care, sufficient food, and be treated in a decent human way that preserve their dignity and does not degrade them.
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