In the Spotlight

The Egyptian Black Hole

A protestor is surrounded and beaten by Central Security Forces (photo from The Cairo Times)

Human Rights Watch's (HRW) explosive new report, appropriately titled "Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt," on the practice of extraordinary renditions to Egypt couldn't have been better—or worse, for the government—timed.

"This report is about the rendition of scores of wanted persons to Egypt, renditions that are illegal because Egypt is known to be a country which practices torture routinely and systematically."

The 53-page document highlights the illegal practice of transporting detainees to countries where they will face torture; specifically in this case, Egypt.

The report is bound to further spotlight the current regime's human rights record, increasing pressure on a government already beleaguered by its citizen's increasingly strident calls for political change.

The practices detailed in the report are disturbingly suggestive of an ongoing global "dirty war" against suspected militant Islamists, replete with disappearances, torture, and in some cases, executions. It is a war spearheaded by the United States, in an alliance with a number of Arab regimes renowned for their willingness to use advanced methods of torture; a war in which mere suspicion is sufficient to bring about the forcible extradition of individuals to countries notorious for torturing detainees.

In some cases, in cooperation with the United States, Egypt has transferred suspects to third countries, from whence they were taken to Bagram Airbase in Kabul, Afghanistan, and subsequently to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But in most cases, the suspects are returned to Egypt, where they face "beatings with fists, feet, leather straps, sticks, and electric cables; suspension in contorted and painful positions accompanied by beatings; the application of electric shocks; and sexual intimidation and violence," and where suspects sometimes die in detention, most often in the custody of the dreaded State Security Investigations (SSI), which enjoys an unparalleled degree of impunity. In many cases, US officials provide the Egyptian interrogators with the questions to be asked of the detainees. In some cases, suspects were executed on the basis of torture-induced confessions.

Egypt's experience crushing the Islamist insurgency in the 90s "was to become the template for treatment of such militants for the next decade… this response has featured efforts to have suspects returned to Egypt in secret, without regard for existing judicial mechanism, the incommunicado detention of suspects upon their return, and subsequent reports that the suspect was tortured, or in some cases had died in detention."

In fact, Egypt has the dubious honor, of being the country "to which the greatest numbers of rendered suspects have been sent." There is also the disturbing suggestion that Egypt 's role in this war "appears to be not the exception in the Middle East but the norm."

Indeed, the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, which contains a dearth of human rights protections, has facilitated the rendition of suspects between Arab states. HRW notes that the Convention seems to be "an effort to 'contract around' certain basic international law obligations, including the obligation not to return an individual to a country where he or she will be at risk of torture."

The report notes that the Convention "does not ask that a government consider whether or not a person will be tortured or ill-treated upon return before making a decision whether or not to hand over a requested individual." Indeed, why should it, when it is a "legal" instrument drafted and signed by states implicated, for the most part, in torture and other human rights abuses?

The report will offer much ammunition to the growing ranks of opponents to the ossified Egyptian regime; it highlights grievances which are increasingly taking center stage in the Egyptian opposition's calls for political reform, most notably, torture, and the imposition of the Emergency Law, "in effect without interruption since 1981, [and which] was augmented by a Ministry of Interior order in October 1981… that allowed the imprisonment of any persons 'under suspicion of any activity that compromises the public security or public order or threatens national unity or social stability,' a carte blanche that the government continues to wield to terrifying effect, as evidenced by the continuing detention of 15,000 Egyptians under its provisions.

Even Sweden has been complicit in this tragedy, rendering suspects to Egypt after seeking written assurances from Egyptian officials that they would not be subjected to torture, ill-treatment, or the death penalty, and that they would receive fair trials—at best, an act of astounding naïveté, bordering on criminal incompetence, on the part of the Swedish government. The suspects were, unsurprisingly, tortured extensively, as the Swedes should have known they would be.

Indeed, HRW's closing recommendations are demands that should be adopted whole-heartedly by all those wishing for change in Egypt. They include the prompt release of detainees not charged with criminal offenses (a figure allegedly in the thousands), the compensation of those who suffered torture, and the investigation and prosecution of all law enforcement officials allegedly implicated in torture. It also calls on the international community to not render any suspects to the Egyptian authorities until Egypt has demonstrably ended the systematic use of torture—an unlikely state of affairs under the current administration.

Taqiyuddin Malik is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo.