A group of Egyptian NGOs slammed human rights violations by Egypt’s Interior Ministry, which saw a number of citizens subjected to torture, sometimes deadly, and enforced disappearances.
The statement comes on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The 14 organizations said they had received a slew of complaints of police torture, which led to death at some cases, noting that the alleged violations were “as if the Interior Ministry had been given a free hand to maltreat citizens…with systematic violations of their basic rights and freedoms.”
It referred to reports by El-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, one of the signatories of the statement, which recorded nine deaths due to police torture between October and November. The organizations, however, said they fear actual cases were bigger than recorded testimonies as some victims declined to give details “either for fear of retribution or for lack of confidence in the justice system.”
The statement rejected the Interior Ministry’s argument that reported tortures were “individual occurrences” rather than systematic.
The signatories said they were going to file recommendations to “concerned bodies” in a conference later on Thursday.
Signatories included the Association for the Freedom of Thought and Expression, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Arabic Center for Human Rights Studies.
