I'm not the type to go into frenzy over a baby, I shamefully admit it. It is not, because I don't love children, on the contrary, I adore them and believe they are our most precious key to a future. But in general I feel – other than the parents escorting them – that one baby in a pram pretty much looks like the next, a little ruffled, much confused over the many faces that pop up over the limited horizon the little carriage offers, not very communicative – and often plain asleep. While I of course understand that to the mother or father next to it this baby is, no questions asked (dare you), the most wonderful, beautiful baby that ever graced the face of the earth, I – silently – beg to differ but naturally assure the good parents that this indeed is one exceptional offspring. Which is true, seeing it is theirs and not somebody else's. So I am not really lying.
There is one baby however that has truly captured my heart for many reasons these days. And yes, even I find that she's not only exceptionally nice to look at (who could not fall for this cute smile?) but also someone very special, with a really beautiful name to go by: Hypatia. Hypatia Alber.
The little one was just recently born by her mother to the most proudest father you probably can come across, one, who already posted photos of her when she was still inside her mother, constantly having her hands at her head and her head often down to which he excitedly exclaimed: "That's my girl!"
He should know. For he is a man who uses his head a lot himself and almost got killed over this only a year ago: Alber Saber.
For those, who are not familiar with his story, which I wrote about a year ago on this blog (Alber Saber - And all is well in Egypt), let me give you a quick sum up: Egyptian, intelligent, 27 years old, thinking aloud about religion and God and trying to find his way in the labyrinths called religions. A Copt, I should add. And all and all, in the Egypt that was 'ruled' by President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood this was a toxic mixture.
A year ago this time, Alber Saber rotted in an Egyptian jail, awaiting the outcome of his trial for alleged blasphemy. In the aftermath of the riots around the vile anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims", tensions against Copts ran high and Alber's posting of his contemplations on religion angered his Muslim Cairo neighbours who on 12 September stormed the house where he was living with his mother and threatened to burn the place down – with them inside. In their fear, mother and son called the police to protect them, but when the Egyptian police arrived and barely were able to make their way through a hateful, shouting mob, there was no interest to protect the Copts. The police sided with those attacking them instead, confiscated Alber's computer and arrested him, leaving the fear stricken mother alone with the death threats hurling crowd.
What followed was horror
Alber they took to the police station where he was thrown into a cell with criminals, not without shouting first that he had insulted God and was an infidel, so that the cellmates turned on him, beat him badly, and one slashed his neck with a razor blade. He had to spend the rest of the night in a corner, bleeding and scared and not knowing if he would ever come out of this alive.
His trial lasted almost three months and was an incredible, hate filled farce. On 12 December the judge ruled that Alber, in criticising religion, had incited 'tensions among Muslims and Christians' and therefor was guilty. The verdict: three years in prison. The chances of him ever getting justice in an Egypt full of sectarian strife under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood had been crushed.
Five days later, as an appeal had been launched and due to the publicity his case and the unjust verdict received world wide, Alber Saber was freed on bail until the resuming of his trial in January 2013. On the day his appeal case was to start, Alber Saber had left Egypt. He knew, he would never get justice if he stayed.
The months that followed for him in Europe were both challenging and depressing. The freedom he gained was a wonderful gift, yet being torn apart from his family was extremely hard. He missed his wife, his mother, his friends. But had to grit his teeth and go on. His safety was at stake.
Then slowly things began taking good turns. The family situation became sorted out and a safe place to live was found. With a heavy heart still over Egypt and those left behind Alber Saber started to do what was his right as a young married man, to live and to love. And to become secure in his life.
It was at this time that a little human started to appear on the horizon, shy at first but bigger and bolder as the months went on, and a living proof that even after troubling times in an Egyptian jail good things can come out of it if you are released on bail. For this little one was conceived when freedom was restored, and it was for her the most that Alber had to make sure he would not rot in prison but be free when she would decide to enter this world.
And enter she did. With a smile so cute, it melts your heart, with wide awake, open eyes to observe and take in, with a twinkle in those eyes, as if trying to say that living after all is real fun and should be enjoyed and that sorrows surely are not part of the universe – and if ever they were may easily be forgotten.
Hypatia, as she so beautifully was called, was the biggest triumph over sectarian hate and police brutality and rotting in dark cells with cockroaches, violent guards and aggressive inmates. She was – and is – the epitome of life and what it is all about: Hope and humanity, compassion and happiness, and the wonderful right to own a future. For everyone. Even for her father who, only a year ago, had to endure such horrors.
The truth about being a father
It was one of the most dreaded parts of Mubaraks rantings, when the old dictator kept referring to Egyptians as 'my children'. When he called the men and women of Egypt 'my sons' and 'my daughters', though he never had a hand in their coming to this world and even less in their making a living and being allowed to live. While he named himself their father, he did not hesitate to make their life hell, neglect them, terrorise them, allow them to be beaten, arrested, tortured and even killed. Something a true father would never have done.
After he was gone, others came pretending to be different but picking up the same sick line of 'my children' and the farce of being a loving father. They too now are history, and how much the current strong man of Egypt, el-Sisi, feels to be the father of Egyptians has yet to be seen. But the well known, albeit dreaded, version of fatherly love from above is lurking once more around the corner.
Enters Hypatia again, full of innocence and natural trust, crouching into the arms of her real father, who could not be prouder and happier, and teaching those old Egyptian wanna-be fathers the simple lesson what being a father to a child really means. Three words are needed only: Love, security and trust.
If you see Hypatia's face, you know what Egyptians expect from their fathers and what they deserve. It is, with all those father figures, high time that the expectations finally are met.
If anything, Egypt can learn a lot from Hypatia and her wonderful smile: That it is worth living more than dying, that trust is the essence for happiness, and that without true, compassionate love, people should not even dream of calling themselves fathers. Only in the arms of a father of love, says Hypatia, can I cuddle securely, dream my little dreams of happiness and fall soundly asleep.
Which she promptly does.
Hush, Egypt, hush. It is time to become quite and contemplate what life is really about. From the darkness of jail hell to the brightness of pure happiness is but a short way. Choose the latter, come on. And while you still ponder on this – make sure please that you don't wake the little one. Psssst ...
Heba Morayef is the Egypt Director of the international organisation Human Rights Watch. She is working from Cairo. Looking back on almost two years since Mubarak was forced to step down, she gives insights into her work and her assessment of the current human rights situation in Egypt.
The interview provides background knowledge on the difficult work of a human rights NGO in Egypt, discusses human rights violations during the transitional period under the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and possible changes under the freely elected President Morsi, and offers in-depth information on the difficulties in dealing with a complex and often corrupt judiciary system even after the revolution.
-----------------------------
Transcript of interview:
Heba - thanks very much for your time. Let us perhaps start by looking back: During the revolution in 2011, when Mubarak was still in power, your office was raided by security police and some of your staff was arrested and only released after a few days. Now, almost two years, a military junta and a freely elected president later, how have working conditions changed for you?
Well, I think that the arrest of the 28 human rights defenders, which included staff from amnesty international and Human Rights Watch, took place as part of a raid on the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, an Egyptian NGO that had been providing assistance for protesters over a period of two years as part of the 'Front for the Defense of the Egyptian Protesters' [FDEP]. So the choice of the Hisham Mubarak was I think very targeted. There was military police, military intelligence, who raided the offices. And so in a sense the international NGO workers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They weren't specifically targeted. And I think that shows how during the revolution the military intelligence and obviously the SCAF saw the NGOs who were continuing to publicise police violations and had started publicising military abuses – whether arbitrary arrest or torture or even military trials in those first few days – they saw them as a threat, and I think that really is something which none of us forgot. And it's why human rights organisations continued to feel very insecure under the year-and-a-half of military rule when the SCAF was fully in power.
The turning point was really mid-August, when the civilian president elected after the presidential elections Mohammud Morsi dismissed Tantawi and Anan, the two leading Generals who controlled Egypt for that year-and-a-half, and I think that brought Egypt into a new phase. NGOs don't feel – are no longer afraid of the military and feel that they have tools at their disposal, especially when it comes to the media and activist groups.
It is a little bit different with international NGOs because after the smear campaign late last year and the NGO trial which saw four American NGOs – the staff of four American NGOs – being put on trial, that has continued to contribute to the general sense of insecurity on the part of international NGOs.
The main problem of course is the fact that there hasn't been a new NGO law yet. Parliament was discussing a new NGO law between January and June – and then it was dissolved in mid-June before the law could be finalised. So I think, until a new law is passed, human rights NGOs in Egypt, whether it is Egyptian or international, will not feel safe.
Why do you think in the wake of this NGO trial that is been ongoing is it that international organisations like amnesty international or Human Rights Watch were not targeted?
Well, there are many international organisations who operate in Egypt who are either registered – that's a very small minority, mostly development organisations – and then many other international organisations who are still awaiting registration or are under registration, so admitted their paperwork years ago. So it's not like all international NGOs were targeted. They weren't. There were specifically US NGOs who were targeted, and I think it's a reflection of the fact that this all started out as a bilateral disagreement between the Egyptian government, specifically led by the then Minister for International Cooperation Fayza Aboul Naga, and between USAID and the US government's different pots of funding. And that's why even though there were other organisations raided in late December – so the Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary, an Egyptian organisation, was one of those raided – the NGOs referred to court were only the US NGOs. So clearly part of a politicised case, a politicised prosecution that was a result of a break of bilateral relations over the funding of civil society.
Numerous times Human Rights Watch published scathing reports on serious violations of human rights, illegal arrests, missing protesters, prisoners subjected to inhumane, brutal treatment, especially during the transitional period when SCAF was in power. How did these publications effect your daily working life? After publication was it business as usual or did you get threats and interventions from the official sides?
Well, 'business as usual' for the human rights community under Mubarak meant that you knew that you constantly were under surveillance, you assumed that your communication was tapped, in particular cell phones, because that was the regular practice, but also that your email communication would not be secure, that any meetings you hold publicly would also not be secure as such. And there's been very little reason to suspect that there's been any shift in that status quo or in the view, the perception of the human rights community on the part of security agencies' tasks with monitoring and surveilling the actions of the NGO community.
So, in the first days of the uprising – we spoke about the raid of the Hishram Mubarak Law Centre and the arrests of the international Human Rights Watch – I mean, obviously that was a high-point where human rights NGOs were a target of arbitrary arrest and subsequent detention of three days by the intelligent services. There hasn't been a repeat of that incident. And I highly doubt that we would see another repeat. But given in the year and a half when the military was very displeased at the publication of abuses by the military that the NGO community was putting out, there wasn't another attempt to have, you know, that kind of direct intervention.
What took place instead was that the military was sort of trying to control the media most of all at the point of publication, and then I think the initiation of the investigation from July onwards was another attempt to remind NGOs that they were still vulnerable. But for the most part most organisations did not receive direct threats to them as individuals or as organisations. I think that is to a certain extent a reflection of the new empowerment after the revolution that the NGO community felt.
So in the last months now that a freely elected president is in the government, has the atmosphere significantly changed or do you still feel vulnerable?
Well, the sense of vulnerability comes from the fact that there isn't a new NGO law yet that would allow Egyptian and international organisations to register under them. If you look at the majority of the independent and reputable human rights organisations in Egypt, you'll find that the vast majority of them are not registered under the NGO law, they're registered as law firms or clinics or companies – or non-profit companies in many cases. So that sense of vulnerability, legal vulnerability, will continue until they are actually able to register and have the protection of the law. Protection against interference of security agencies and protection just in terms of their status for their staff.
The other factors, that even organisations that are registered, even those few organisations that are registered like the New Women Foundation for example, are now – are still unable to get their funding approved. So if you are registered under the NGO law this means you have to get approval from the government for every single incoming fund, even if it's been – even if it's part of the multi-year project from the same source of funding. And what this NGO has found over the last year and then also for other organisations like the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights or the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights is that the security agencies are blocking their funding. So that's another reason why organisations continue to feel vulnerable, because in many cases, you know, they had to put their staff on 50% salaries, they've lost a lot of their staff – it's having already a direct impact on their activities. So until there is an unfreezing of funds and until there is an interference from the new government, the new presidency, to actually address this issue, I don't think there will be a noticeable shift in the daily reality of the work of human rights organisations.
How does this affect you personally? I know that many times when you tried to re-enter Egypt coming from overseas you had problems with the security officers, one time even this notorious black-list of Amn al-Dawla was cited. And you once said how ridiculous it is that you face these problems again and again on entering your own country. What is behind this harassment at the airport do you think?
Well, putting activists on airport watch lists, on interrogation lists or even banning them from travel was a regular practice that the security services would use as a form of harassment against activists and against the opposition. I mean, that is obviously something that the Muslim Brotherhood in particular experienced, as so many of them had travel bans and in some cases would win cases overturning the travel ban because it was an arbitrate decision, even then could not actually get their names lifted from security lists at the airport. I think there's a whole area which is unexplored until now, which hasn't been prioritised or addressed so far.
I think in my case, I am on an old list which is called an Amn al-Dawla list, a State Security Investigations list, and there hasn't been a change in that list in terms of my case. So every time I leave the country I need to get additional security clearance to actually leave the country and I also need to get the stats safe security clearance to enter my country. And I think, you know, I think this is a reflection of a sort of fundamentally problematic approach that was fairly typical of the Mubarak era but that I hope will change in the next months. That is something the Muslim Brotherhood themselves personally experienced.
How influential do you think the government believes NGOs of your sort are? In the BBC Hardtalk interview with the Prime Minister Qandil Stephen Sackur referred to you as one of Egypt's most influential women. How influential do you feel under the circumstances?
I mean, it's a difficult question to answer. It's always very difficult to actually quantify the influence that human rights organisations, whether international or Egyptian, have. It depends on the issue, it depends on how much media support, how much media coverage there is for a particular issue. And you also have to catch the attention of the media and the policy makers at that particular time, so there are some areas of our work that get less attention.
For example the issues that I've worked on over the years has been human trafficking in the Sinai because it's an issue that has been purposefully ignored and there's been a refusal to recognise that by the government. But when we put out short reports or long press releases on human trafficking in the Sinai that doesn't usually get a huge amount of coverage. However with other issues such as with our analysis of one of the earlier drafts of the constitution, that did get a lot of coverage and attention. So, I think, you know, influence is something that really depends on the set of circumstances at that particular time.
I think we are in an era in general post-revolution where the influence of human rights organisations has increased in a sense. Despite the smear campaign against NGOs last year, there is a new willingness to engage and meet with human rights NGOs. They almost have a new status in Egypt today. And how that will evolve going forward is still unclear. There may yet be a regression once more, but for the moment I think the new Muslim Brotherhood leadership is at least listening. And I think that's what's important.
You publish internationally. How do you get the information that you publish across to the Arabic speaking people of Egypt and is the Arabic media in Egypt now picking it up more than it used to do?
Well, I think what's been really noticeable over the last year and a half is that the Arabic media is very sensitive to what gets published in the international media. So we regularly see New York Times or Washington Post articles translated, and that's often because the correspondents in Egypt managed to get quotes from the leadership that is significant, that is politically significant. And especially over the last year and a half, and especially obviously with the American newspapers when it came to the military. So that sort of become a regular practice. The media in Egypt is very outward looking, it will either translate entire articles or often report on what the main newspapers in the US and the UK are writing. And I think, obviously social media has also broken the boundaries in terms of what sort of Egyptian media versus international media, and everything then ultimately gets picked up in a sense.
So you would say there's a boldness now more than before of the Arabic Egyptian media reporting on these cases? Because of course the state media never did.
Absolutely. I think at the moment the Egyptian media is still in a phase where it sort of feels that it has nothing to fear. The red lines of the Mubarak era may be re-established along different lines. I mean, obviously there's been no media reform as such of the institutions of state media, and we still don't know whether or not there will be that kind of media reform. It was something the Muslim Brotherhood were particularly interested in but we just haven't really seen – apart from vague statements about looking into media reform – we haven't really seen any steps in that respect.
Can we talk about how you work on a daily basis for Human Rights Watch? How do you go about researching these cases of human rights violations that you then publish?
Well, the model that we use at Human Rights Watch is one where our work relies primarily on documentation, on report writing with a strong advocacy component to it, and obviously media work connected to both.
So, you know, my work on a daily basis – I obviously have to monitor human rights abuses that are generally taking place in Egypt. Again, our model that we at Human Rights Watch have: one researcher per country if your lucky, and sometimes one researcher for two countries. So you need to be aware generally of everything that is going on in the country and then you need to make choices on a weekly basis about which issues to actually zoom in on and focus on. And you make that choice based on an assessment of whether your voice is needed – I mean, if Egyptian organisations are already covering a particular issue then you might not need a Human Rights Watch input as well as that – but also in this area the consideration whether or not we can have an impact. If there's an area where we think that we in particular – that our voice would be helpful in addition to other organisations, then that is the second criterium on which we make these choices.
And then, once you've chosen to work on a particular issue, you always try and get – you need primary sources of information. We are very testimony driven in our work and so sometimes, even if you are just writing a short press release, you will need to speak to several people. I can remember for example that with the March 9th, 2011 arrest of protesters in Tahrir square I wrote a press release about torture and I think, if I remember the numbers correctly, I'd spoken to – I'd done interviews with about 16 victims of torture just to be able to then say that we knew for sure that there had been torture of more than hundred protesters on that day. So, for every fact you actually need to have the background to it. So depending on what project your working on at that particular point you may be out there gathering the testimony, meeting with the families, cross-checking the testimony then with the lawyers very often, because there's always a legal aspect to it, checking with lawyers whether or not complaints have been filed.
In an ideal world you always also want to get a response from officials about that, I mean, either to bring the issue to their attention, so that they know that you're going to publish a report or a press release, but also in order to verify information about what legal steps have been taken on the part of the authorities. Thus far that's been a little more difficult in Egypt. But here again that is something that may shift, because we're seeing in general in parts of the government a recognition that they need to be more responsive to media questions.
And then there is the writing part. And whenever you write anything for Human Rights Watch you always have to make sure that you include recommendations about what you think needs to happen to address the human rights violation. If you're doing that at the press release, it's very often, you know, what comes out in the quote and usually gets picked up by the media; if you're doing it in a report, then you'll have a whole recommendations section with recommendations addressed to either, you know, different government bodies and sometimes to third governments or to multilateral institutions.
And then you take the risen product and you meet with the authorities, whoever is in charge of the particular issue. And you try to pressure them both directly through this meeting and subsequently through the media coverage that you then seek in order to put out this report and to give it more weight.
Are you also allowed inside prisons and do you have access to prisoners who file complaints?
No. The last time Egypt allowed a human rights organisation into its prisons formally was 1992. At the time they gave Human Rights Watch permission to visit several prisons. Obviously after that we went away and we wrote several reports that were pretty critical and after that then to us the doors were shut.
There hasn't been a change in the authorities position on this so far. It is something that technically lies within the realm of the Public Prosecutor. So right now only the National Council for Human Rights has access to prisons. And it's obviously one of the main demands of the human rights community that that changes, because it's one way of ensuring oversight of the police and the best way of actually identifying police abuse very early on and talking about prison conditions.
Right now, when we do a report thing on prisons, it's often either through families, through lawyers who can actually visit, and very often people will have phones – in informal basis will have access to cellphones inside the prison. And that's fairly common across the Middle East in some countries.
In the new constitution that has seen many revisions during the draft process, there is one article that stipulates that for the future no one is allowed to be in a prison in unhealthy, indecent, inhumane conditions and only allowed to be in a prison that is overseen by the judiciary, not allowed to be subjected to physical or psychological treatment. Could you believe this to materialise in the near future in Egypt?
Prison conditions in Egypt is a big, bis issue. Many prisons in Egypt don't meet minimum conditions. It's an issue – it's a budgetary issue, it's also a managerial issue, and I think it is something that will take many years in the future to address, the main problem being the fact that the prison system relies on private donations from families ultimately. And there's a lot of corruption also within the prison administrative system at a very local level. So if you're somebody who is from a richer background, you can ensure better conditions inside a prison, if you're less fortunate, then your treatment will suffer accordingly. And that's of course not the way it's supposed to be. But it's a long term problem, because it's an issue – it's a structural, institutional and budgetary issue, at least in terms of the conditions.
I think in terms of treatment, that's something that's more specific, and that's something that we can work on in the short term in the human rights community within prisons. And also – but a lot of this will require legal reforms, and I think we won't really see any of this being addressed until there's a new parliament. I think, the important thing is to have the principles set out in the constitution, but then the next step is to actually address legislation in terms of the prison's law and other pieces of legislation. And then of course that will require a lot of lobbying on the part of the NGO community to ensure that these issues are actually implemented.
When the 24 that were charged with being responsible for the Battle of the Camel where acquitted, you tweeted that this did not surprise you after you had spoken to the prosecutor and had seen the weak evidence compiled by the prosecution. How was Human Rights Watch involved here? Did you actually get access to these papers by the prosecution?
No. I didn't review the case files. But you could have had access to them because there were lawyers who were representing victims in that case and they would obviously have access to that. But in this case I was actually speaking to a prosecutor who had been involved in investigating that case from one of the central Cairo prosecutorial offices. And so I thought his perspective was very interesting. I mean, he basically said that the prosecutors were under a lot of pressure to refer this case to court early on, even though they didn't have sufficient evidence.
And I think that's another of the problems in general, in terms of the way accountability has gone in Egypt over the last couple of years. I mean, I'm no fan of the office of the public prosecution. I think it's an office that requires a lot of fundamental reform in terms of it's independence. I think it has very often served to maintain the impunity especially for security services and obviously also for the military over the years. However, I do also recognise that they have been under an immense amount of pressure over the last two years for quick referrals to court, even in cases where their investigations were not complete.
How is your working relation with the Public Prosecutor's office? Is there any working relation?
No, not really. The Public Prosecutor – I mean the office of the Public Prosecutor is obviously the very senior prosecutor, the Public Prosecutor himself, and the deputy public prosecutors. And they are usually extremely busy and very difficult to access. So in a sense, the best way of actually understanding the prosecutor's perspective has often been to have informal conversations with prosecutors at lower levels as opposed to actually trying to have that kind of conversation about an individual case.
We have in the past sought meetings with the Public Prosecutor himself and even with the Assistant Public Prosecutor and so far they've always declined them due to time constraints. Which in some cases I believe was actually very true, because, you know, in the first half of 2011 in particular they were investigating all of the police abuse cases as well as many of the corruption cases. So I have some – yea, I do understand that to a certain extent. However I do think the office of the Public Prosecutor needs to have a better relationship with the human rights community in general.
When Morsi tried to 'promote' the Prosecutor General to ambassador at the Vatican there were huge protests. I mean, he was unfazed and just stayed in the job for the reason that he gave. There were reportedly more than 1000 judges and prosecutors supporting him, warning to touch the "independence of the judiciary". On the other hand many point out that the judiciary is very corrupt, that you have to have connections, family ties even better, to become a judge. How 'independent' is this judiciary?
Well, the short answer is that the judiciary in Egypt has a very mixed reputation. And overall you can't say that the judiciary is independent, because of everything you referred to. There are lots of corruption concerns, there are lots of concerns in terms of how – in terms of the judges who used to sit on Mubarak's State Security Courts or who used to oversee Mubarak's elections and which, you know, were completely forging it obviously. So those judges – many of them are actually known by name also to the Muslim Brothers, since in many cases they were the ones who were being sentenced in these cases. So obviously the issue of independence of the judiciary needs to be addressed.
The issue is how. And I think the way Morsi went about it with the Public Prosecutor, I think that was very clearly, extremely mismanaged and obviously would also, you know – they can get the formal protection for the independence of the judiciary then become the issue as opposed to the policies of the current Public Prosecutor.
But then, you know, more broadly speaking, you have the same issue when it comes to the Supreme Constitutional Court. The Muslim Brotherhood see that court again as being one of the last bodies controlled by pro-Mubarak people. And while I think that that's actually not an accurate estimate of the full make-up of that court – some of those individuals are judges who are known to have been responsive to the government, I think on some cases – but you can't make that assessment about all of the judges on the Supreme Constitutional Court.
So it's really a fundamentally problematic issue. You know there's a problem of the independence of the judiciary, you know that you need to address reforming the institution, but you can't do it by – through executive order from a president at a time when you really need the judiciary to continue to be a check to the executive, you need the judiciary to address accountability of the security services, you need the judiciary to help you with implementation of the rule of law. And a sledgehammer approach is not going to be productive for anybody in Egypt. I think it has to be a process that's based on the new judicial authority law, it has to be a process accompanied by some transparency, and it has to be a process that goes slowly, because we also have examples from other countries where this becomes – where, you know, taking too quick an approach of cleansing the judiciary can become detrimental to the entire institution over the following years.
If as you say or as one can see the judiciary body is perhaps one of the remnants still of the old regime, is this then perhaps one of the biggest fights still between the felool and the new forces in Egypt and could this be one of the battles that still has to be fought by the revolution?
You see, I don't – I don't – I don't think so, no. I don't agree with the assessment that the judiciary as a whole is a felool institution. I think that is an inaccurate assessment because there are also many judges who would often – especially if you look at the administrative courts over the last period – who would often take decisions that were independent as such. So I think there's a mix within the judiciary, there are certain layers – there are different levels of those judges who are really complicit with the government, complicit with the system, who take orders, instructions from the government by phone and would make politicised decisions. I think, those judges, you know, are fundamentally problematic. But I don't think – I don't think it's productive to take a holistic approach to the institution as a whole.
I think, looking at the institution as a whole you have to address that from a legal reform perspective, how to increase guarantees of independence moving forward. And in terms of individual judges, I think in a sense the best way to address that is actually through transparency, through publication of what they were involved with in the past and their sense that will affect their impartiality as individual judges, and they can be increasingly shunned out of the system.
Let's talk about another topic: Women's rights are human rights. Yet women - who fought alongside in the revolution - now feel left out in the process in building the new Egypt. Only 7 members in the Constitutional Draft Committee of 100 were women and the constitution itself, as you criticised, omit's women's rights when it comes for instance to trafficking. There was a march to the presidential palace by women demanding that their rights should be respected. Do they stand a chance of being heard?
I think, in a sense one of the small victories perhaps for the women's rights movement has been the fact that they've managed to get women's rights in the constitution put onto a list of issues that liberal political parties, political party representatives and liberal political personalities on the constitutional assembly are negotiating with a hard line Islamist – that's one of the sort of red lines. Obviously there's been a lot of coverage of the question of what status Sharia will have within the constitution and that will have an impact on women's rights. So it's not just women's rights groups on the outside, it's now also politicians on the inside who are negotiating on behalf of those groups. And I think that's important, because that's not only the case in Egypt, unfortunately.
I think, you know, the extent to which there will be success on that issue, that isn't clear yet. The latest compromise is the removal of Art. – I mean the deletion of Article 68 as a whole, because Art. 68, which is the one on equality between men and women as it stood, was limited by the language, saying that the state shall provide for equality without prejudice to the rulings of Sharia. And the word 'rulings' here is highly problematic because it sets out a very rigid determination of which rules in particular with regard to family law would apply to women. And in a sense at this stage my position – I mean our position at Human Rights Watch is that it's better to exclude a provision like that which would set out so clearly the limitation rulings of Sharia while retaining the general non-discrimination provision than to retain a provision as it stands.
Of course Egyptian's women's rights groups' reactions has been to insist that there'd be a provision that provides for full equality on the grounds of gender and provides for other rights for women and then they're quite right to continue to fight that battle. But it's not a very optimistic situation given the way things have been going on the constituent assembly.
Let's talk about Maspero. The peaceful march more than a year ago by Coptic christians was brutally crushed by the military and 27 people were killed. There was lots of video evidence showing how deliberately army drivers ran over unarmed protesters with their APCs and crushed them to death. With so much evidence one should have expected quick trials and harsh sentences. Were these expectations met?
Well, no. I think the trial that took place before a military court was one that was, you know, fundamentally problematic. Our recommendation at Human Rights Watch has always been that serious human rights abuses by the military not be tried before a military justice system because this is a clear conflict of interest. And the military justice system in Egypt has no assemblance to independence. Judges report to judges serving military officers and the line of authority, the head of the military justice authority, reports to the minister of defence. So there is not even an attempt to have a semi-independence military justice system. And as such the decision to refer three very junior soldiers – who were said to have been driving APCs on that day – the decision to refer them to trial was an inadequate one and the sentences that were issued against them were extremely inadequate: between two to three years for that crime is nothing.
And there was a specific decision to exclude any investigation on the role of the military in the killing of 14 protesters using life gunfire. The case that actually went to court only looked at the killing of 13 protesters who were crushed by the APCs. But the military from the beginning has refused to acknowledge that it's ever used live gunfire. And that is, you know, fundamentally a problematic approach.
So, no, I don't think there's been any serious accountability for Maspero. I don't think those responsible have been investigated and prosecuted because there was also no examination of commander responsibility. It's not just the drivers of the APCs on that day who were responsible. It was also the people issuing orders, it was also the military commanders who were deployed at a field level, it was also military commanders who discussed plans for that day and who aren't in the military offices in that way. And that is not something which I think Egypt will ever get a real investigation into until the civilian justice system is in a position to actually investigate the military. I have no hope that there will be accountability while it's only the military justice system that can investigate and prosecute military officers.
I suppose this also holds true then in your assessment regarding Mohamed Mahmoud street, cabinet clashes, other protesters killed?
Well, I mean it holds true for the cabinet clashes in particular, because there again we have protesters who were killed. We have also clear video footage, a clear documentation of the assault of protesters, beating of men and women protesters by the military and yet there's been no investigation into that.
Mohamed Mahmoud I think is a slightly easier battle, or rather let me say a less difficult battle, a less impossible battle, because there you don't actually need legislative reform in order to be able to try people. In a fact, I think there is so much evidence that's out there, as I say, that really if there is a political will to prosecute people from Mohamed Mahmoud, technically speaking that could go ahead. So what you need is a political will, you know, you don't actually have to fight the entire military justice system in order to get the evidence as well. And yet we've only seen one police officer put on trial, which is of course completely ridiculous. So there again, we haven't seen accountability for Mohamed Mahmoud.
Let's turn another page: In April a 17 year old boy in Assiut got sentenced to 3 years in jail for a photo on Facebook that was said to be blasphemous. The young boy now serves prison time and one can rightly expect his life to be ruined. At the time you spoke of a "frightening pattern". Since then more Copts have been sentenced to prison terms, small Coptic children have been arrested for allegedly defaming a Quran they can't even read, and the young Copt Alber Saber is awaiting his next court sessions, also fearing years in prison. Is this the "pattern" you spoke of?
I think what worries us most in the Human Rights Community is the increase and the number of complaints filed on the grounds of blasphemy and increase in the number of prosecutions and trials. I think for accuracy's sake it's important to point out, that while Alber Saber is technically a Copt, he himself identifies as an atheist. And so this isn't something that is targeted purely at Coptic Christians although they form the majority of victims so far. It is something that will also target atheists and there's also been a Shia Iman sentenced to one year under this provision. So in a sense, anyone who does not conform to either – I mean, anyone who will either criticise Islam the religion or the Prophets, he will be at risk. But also individuals from faiths other than the three Abrahamic religions will also be at risk in this sense. And I think what's most frightening for us is, that we're – I think we're likely to see an increase in the number of these prosecutions going forward.
People blame the president and the Muslim Brotherhood for this. But isn't it the judiciary that was formed under Mubarak that is actually doing this?
I think it's a combination of factors. I don't think it's a – I don't think you can just blame one or the other party. The main problem of course is that this provision is an extremely broad one and it is still in the books. This is the penal code that was obviously used under Mubarak. Many of these cases are filed at a local level by Islamist lawyers and many cases Salafi lawyers. The fact that there is a lack of interference from the authorities at that early level, I think that is one opportunity to actually address this. But once it actually goes to the prosecutor's office, because of the broad discretion given to prosecutors under this provision, they will almost invariably refer the case immediately to court. And here again, once it's in court, once again because the provision is so broad – it basically just says that anybody "insulting Islam" ... , and that is open to definition to anyone – but if you end up with a conservative judge, which is very likely to take place, since many of theses cases also take place, you know, outside the bigger circuits in Cairo, then the likelihood of a conviction is also very high.
There's also been an increase again in rounding up and arresting suspected gay men in Egypt. What does Human Rights Watch monitor with regard to the post-revolution situation of LGBTs?
I'm not sure that we're at a point where we're actually seeing targeting, because there has obviously been an increase in reported cases, but so far it's still – they're still fairly isolated cases. If we were to see the kind of crackdown that we saw in early 2004, the numbers we'd be looking at would be much, much higher, because it's fairly easy to track down the gay community in cities like Cairo or Alexandria, should they want to. So luckily we're not yet at that stage, but here again it's a very, very, very serious concern the fact that some of these arrests have taken place. Because, if there is a decision to take the case to court, I think there is very little that anybody in the human rights community can do to protect these people from a conviction. So our whole advocacy strategy in a sense is to actually prevent the arrest itself and to prevent a referral to court.
During the revolution many people were arrested, abducted and went missing. I remember in February 2011 we both compared lists of the missing and an estimate of 330 at the time we found very high. Then there was a study in March coming out saying 1200 went missing. And now the campaign "We will find them" [Hanlaqihom] says, almost two years after the revolution hundreds are still not found. Is that a number you can relate to?
This isn't something that I – no, this isn't something that I've actually examined and verified. I've heard 'We will find them' muse various numbers at different points, even the number a thousand a few months ago, which I think is too high. It's possible that there may still be some – and I'm afraid, in most of these cases I suspect that these are people who were actually killed but were either not properly identified in the morgues or – you know, might be in places where they've unable to communicate their identity if they're still alive. But I don't believe that we would get a two year detention that will be this long without people that hear of the prisoner. I mean, knowing Egyptian prisons you can usually send word, either via other prisoners who are receiving visitors ... – And I don't think any of them are also specifically valuable detainees in the sense that they would want to disappear them. And we have no evidence that disappearance as a crime is something that is taking place by the security services at this point. So, I'm afraid that in most cases it must be individuals who've either been killed or maybe are unable to communicate with their families.
Lawyer Ahmed Seif El-Islam, he is a member of the official committee set up by Morsi to look into prisoners, said in August that there are "private prisons" associated with certain security agencies and outside the inspection jurisdiction of the prosecutor. Have you any knowledge of this?
No. No, I don't.
Can you give a short assessment regarding the renaming of Amn el-Dawla into Amn el-Watany? Is this really a change, was there a reform? Or is this only pouring old wine into new bottles?
Well, we know that many of the staff of State Security Investigations were just transferred into National Security, and there's been no transparency about whether or not there was any overall method or any criteria for the reappointment or not. So there's no reason – we haven't seen any real accountability, we haven't seen any transparency, we haven't seen any accountability for the crimes of the Security Investigation's officers over the years. And I think at a minimum we can say with confidence that the National Security is not any different from State Security Investigations in that sense. There hasn't been an improvement of oversight. And we're still getting cases where they are interfering politically, although we haven't been getting cases of detention or ill-treatment so far.
So how safe are Egyptians these days from torture?
Oh no, torture continues in the context of normal criminal investigations. We're just not getting torture cases from National Security yet. But no, torture continues as a practice. There's been no attempt to actually halt torture in any way.
When apartheid crumbled in South Africa, a truth and reconciliation committee was set up under Desmond Tutu. Criminal figures could get amnesty if they confessed to their crimes and asked the victims for forgiveness. When in Germany the Berlin Wall came down, former criminal members of the regime where put on trial and got sentenced to jail. What solution would you think to be better for Egypt to heal the wounds after decades of suppression and human rights violations?
I think what Egypt needs is a proper accountability process for the crimes of the past, and not just these partial and ineffective prosecutions that we've had for the violence of January 2011. And even those haven't brought about real accountability. In a sense the fact finding committee set up by President Morsi could be a potentially good starting point. They have looked at a number of incidents where there hasn't been accountability.
But I think most importantly there actually need to be prosecutions for the use of torture – the political tool of punishment – but more importantly as a regular form of extracting confessions in the context of criminal investigations. Unless you actually start prosecuting and having trials you will not be able to deter the practice moving forward. And unless you actually address prosecutions within the security sector and reform the security sector in a comprehensive and transparent way, you won't get a change in the behaviour of the police moving forward and we will see more incidents like Mohamed Mahmoud or the other incidents of excessive use of force on the part of the police. So accountability is an essential part of that.
Heba, thank you very much for this interview and your time.
Thank you.
--------------------------
You can follow Heba Morayef on twitter at @hebamorayef
Imagine it is night. In the darkness outside a mob is congregating around your house. They scream, they hurl death threats, they say they will burn down the house and kill you. You and your mother are scared to death. Your mother calls the police by phone. They must come and protect you or something terrible will happen. Then the police come. They intrude into your apartment, but instead of calming the crowds and stopping their illegal doings – the police arrest you, drag you out of the house and through the cheering crowds that continue in their death threats while shouting Allahu akbar. Your mother is left behind without someone protecting her. And you cannot do anything, because the police have handcuffed you and drive you away. It is almost midnight and the horror has gone on for hours. You are scared stiff and don't know where the police is taking you and what will happen to your mother.
Imagine arriving at the police station at the middle of the night with no lawyer to help you, no one to turn to. Imagine the police officers, who came not to save you but to arrest you, hurl insults at you, push you, beat you, then throw you into a dark cell where there are other inmates already. Imagine one police officer shouting to the inmates that you have insulted the Prophet, that you have been blasphemous, that you don't believe in God – shouting it so loud that everyone is getting agitated and angry. Imagine the frustrated inmates, furious at the police for treating them like dirt, now turning their fury on you, because they need an outlet for their anger, need a scapegoat they can blame everything on. And imagine how they fall on you, shouting, pushing – and how then one inmate grabs you from behind, pulls back your head and slashes your neck with a razor blade until you bleed. While the mob around you want to kill you and the police officer grins his dirty grin.
Your adrenaline will pump in your head, you are so scared to die there and then in this shitty police hole of a cell, with the blood already running down your neck and into your shirt, you sweat yourself wet and your heart pounds so hard that it hurts and you know you are going to die any minute at the hands of this incited mob – and then the police officer finally shouts for them to stop and they let go of you and the police officers move away and you have to spend the rest of the night in a corner of the cell not knowing if they will come at you again, if they will take that razor blade again and slash you to death. And you feel the blood running down your body and into your trousers and you don't know if the mob on the street has killed your mother or not. It is so dark in that cell, so unbelievably dark. And you lose all grip on yourself because you don't know if you'll survive the night.
Imagine all that. And then wonder what you have done that could have caused this. Not in the Middle Ages. Not in the middle of nowhere. But in Cairo. In 2012. Under the regime – or is it a government – of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Then you hear that the mob has told the police officers that you had posted that anti-Islam movie about the Prophet from that disgusting American on your facebook site. But you know you didn't and you know they are lying. And you don't understand how you can almost die in front of the police who never investigated anything when they where called to save you from the mob, but instead threw you in jail. Without evidence, without any reason. In Cairo. In 2012. In September.
And later you learn that the investigations of the prosecutor indeed show that you have not posted that shitty film on your facebook page, and that therefore they should never have arrested you and thrown you to the furious inmates inciting them to injure you. And you learn too that the General Prosecutor, who has already done his evil work under Mubarak and never cared for the murders of almost 1000 innocent Egyptian protesters, is still allowed to be evil and still allowed under President Morsi to continue in his evil work. And you think about the promises of this new President, who said that all murders of the revolution will be solved and all martyrs will get justice. And you know this will never, ever happen with this General Prosecutor, who did not care about the young protesters getting killed and who does not care to do what the new President tells the world in his interviews, and who still does not get sacked but can continue to be a felool, while the President just allows it to happen.
And then you learn, while you got your head shaved and have to share a dirty cell with too many inmates and get hardly something decent to eat and have to shit in front of the others while the cockroaches run around your feet, that the prosecutor knows you are innocent, but that he still won't set you free. Because he found out that you thought about religion and God and that you don't know who to believe, and to him this is worse than insulting religion, this is so evil that he would like to kill you and is sorry he can't, because there is no law for that in Egypt. And you learn that all evidence is withheld from your lawyers that your mother and human rights groups have now engaged for you. That the prosecutor is not giving it to the lawyers although he must, but he does not care for the law. He is above the law, as he was above the law under Mubarak and is now above the law under Morsi, because this new President is not better than the old one and does not care. And you learn that the prosecutor hisses at your lawyer how he can defend you, when you don't believe in a God! And you wonder why he knows nothing or cares for nothing that is called judicial procedures and defence of an accused or the rights of someone who has not been proven guilty. And you know, if he could, he would order you to be lashed or again thrown to inmates that try to kill you. And he would laugh about the blood running down your body and would go home not thinking about it anymore. Because his life is fine. His life has not changed. No revolution has forced him to change his evil way. He does not have to care for the law or human rights or the big words from the President. Because the President allows this to happen. In Egypt. In 2012. And so the prosecutor can say to the press that he demands the full punishment for you – for what?, you think – and no mercy, no mercy!
And the President says nothing. Only big words on television. And grins. Like the General Prosecutors grins. And you wonder why in God's name – yes, in his – you and your mother so often have risked your lives back then in Tahrir, when you fought for the revolution – that now eats you up like the regime before wanted to eat you up. And you ask yourself why so many died in Tahrir and around Egypt when what you got is only what you had. And you think that if you had wanted to be thrown in jail for nothing, you might as well have achieved this under Mubarak and that you would not have needed a revolution for this. Because what you get today is the treatment you could have gotten before. So why the fight and the many deaths? It has all been futile.
You are 27 years and of Coptic origin. You are not dumb. You have been taught to think and use your brains to question. And you have questioned. You have looked at the three big religions with their contradictory statements and their unequivocal belief only they are right, only their God is the one and only right God, and you looked at all that and were confused. Yes. You were a young man and you were confused. Now they hold that against you. Your crime, they say, is that you asked questions, that you tried for your life to find answers you could live with. Your crime, they say, is that you dared to use your own brains, that you not simply behaved like a sheep and said "blah, blah" when all demanded you to say "blah, blah" and not think, and not question, and obey blindly under the sword of religion that to you is not solace but confusion. Your crime, they tell you, is that you did what hundred thousands of people and philosophers have done before you in thousands of years that this world exists, trying to find answers to riddles that are so difficult to solve, trying to see light in dark tunnels, trying to find a personal way to understand life.
That was your crime. In Cairo. In 2012. In the 21st century after a revolution and under a President who says that now all are equal in Egypt. And he tells it to the world in staged interviews, grinning and smiling as if everything is in order. But he does not tell to that world that he is lying, that the Muslim Ahmed Mohamed Abdallah (known as Sheikh Abu Islam), who burned a Bible at the U.S. embassy protests and who was filmed doing that and who said that next time he will "urinate on it" and who too is charged with blasphemy, is free and not in jail and not beaten and not slashed with a razor across the neck and does not have to sit in a cage like an animal for all to watch and scorn at and has no mother who had to flee the angry mob threatening to kill her and burn the house down and who cannot return to her home because the Egyptian police is only protecting the mob but not the innocent woman. And who is not sitting in a dark, infested, dirty cell at night with unruly fellow inmates and is scared stiff that he will be sentenced to years in prison and never see his mother in freedom again and will not be able to protect her from the mob that still wants to kill her. In Egypt.
In the Egypt, where the President Morsi says, all now are equal. And where lying is still the name of the game in the presidency, in the judiciary, in the society. And nothing has changed from Mubarak times. Nothing has changed, just nothing. And they drag you from the cage after a futile court date, where your lawyers not even got the evidence against you into their hands, where the prosecutor molests your mother and treats her like dirt so that she weeps and weeps, and where you are insulted and degraded and can't help her from out of that cage. And they lead you down the stairs to the truck waiting to bring you back to your cell, and they need five men, five grown men to shove you down one single staircase, though your are handcuffed and thin and skinny from the shit treatment you had to endure already for weeks, and you can't look at your mother one last time because they won't let you, and you know that Abdallah is free and that the mob is free and that the General Prosecutor is free. And all are grinning and smiling and free. Because the President says in an interview that now all is good in Egypt and all are equal before the law. And you know you will spend your nights and days until the next court date in weeks in that infested, dirty cell, degraded, humiliated, treated like dirt. Because you too are an Egyptian. And equal. And you wonder what Morsi means, when he says "equal", and whether he knows that he is lying, and you don't know how you will survive.
Just imagine all this would happen to you. Your name would then be Alber Saber. And you would not understand why the world, why Egypt, why your fellow Egyptians, why the President Morsi is allowing all this to happen. But as this did not happen to you, you are not Alber Saber. That is wonderful. You will sleep well. Because Egypt is well. And all are equal now. And all is good now. And the President will not lie anymore and means what he says. Because he is not Mubarak. No. Mubarak is gone. There was a revolution, remember? Now all is well. And Egypt has nothing to fear anymore. Never again.
__________________________
Alber Saber was arrested on September 13, 2012 on false charges in Cairo, Egypt. He has not regained his freedom.
Just a week ago to the day a peaceful march by Copts to Maspero, the State TV building in Cairo, turned bloody when military police attacked the demonstrators with sticks, guns and armored vehicles - leaving 26 Copts dead.
On Wednesday the SCAF gave a press conference in which lies were heaped high by the Generals Emara and Etman trying to hide the killing of peaceful Egyptians by their own army. Even though videos were already circulating on the internet showing how heavy armored vehicles - Army Personnel Carriers (APC) - were running over people, the SCAF strictly denied this saying first that the soldiers driving the APC were "clearly trying to avoid people" - later even going so far as to insinuate not soldiers were driving the APCs crushing protesters but possibly civilians. - No explanation of course was given how any civilian could have taken over a heavily armed and locked APC and why any civilian who should have managed to do that would run over his own fellow protesters and kill them.
The extent of lying to which the Generals of the SCAF are prepared to go to hide the guilt of this massacre is beyond belief.
Watch these four videos now on the internet to see how in the eyes of the SCAF General Emara the APC drivers were "clearly trying to avoid people". If ramming right into them by swerving to the side onto an island - or if ramming right into them by running them down heads on in full speed is "clearly trying to avoid people" - then we better not ask what deliberate attacks would look like. How they could be worse however remains one of the many secrets of the SCAF.
APC driving over island in middle of street crushing many protesters
Zigzagging trying to hit protesters - (and soldiers beating at protesters behind cars)
APC crushing protesters - shown from above
APC crushing protesters - shown from street
Ten people at least were crushed to death in these running over attacks with APCs. Their bodies with faces distorted beyond recognition were brought to the morgue of the Coptic hospital were autopsies were performed. On late Monday night they were honoured in a big funeral. Their families are traumatized and shocked over this loss.
The army - instead of admitting to the guilt - has taken the cases away from the General Prosecutor and announced that only they themselves would be allowed to hold any investigation in this matter. Anyone can see what that is leading to. - Justice? Truth? - Definitely not.
Let Egypt never forget these murders by soldiers against their own people and stop the lie that the army and the people are one hand. An army that kills the people it is supposed to protect betrays its country. And the SCAF will have to face accountability for all this. Their lying must be stopped once and for all.
May they never get away with this. Never. - Don't ever let them.
Read this documentary of the SCAF press conference today on the massacre of demonstrating Copts at Maspero on Sunday. 25 protesters were killed by gunshots or crushed to death by armoured army vehicles deliberately running them over - as video footage proves.
No truth was to be expected from this press conference. And alas - no truth was presented. This press conference for long will remain in the memories of Egyptians as the worst hour of lying by the SCAF.
In a statement to the BBC, Major General Ismail Etman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has denied reports that military police used live ammunition during the Maspero clashes on Sunday.
Etman’s statement contradicts eyewitness accounts and primary autopsy reports that show protesters were killed by live ammunition.
------------------------------------------------
A clever man once said: "I never trust statistics I haven't forged myself." To a certain degree you could think this was the attitude of the SCAF as well, because they clearly don't trust a truth they haven't fabricated themselves. And fabricate they do with all might.
When peaceful protesters were arrested at Tahrir on Feb 26 the army showed them on State TV shortly afterwards declaring them publicly to be "thugs".
When there was truly no evidence to thuggery from protesters arrested on March 9, the army brought in masses of weapons from its depot, laid them on a table, made protesters stand next to them and took photos to prove the protesters had been armed. Looking at the masses of weapons on the table, the protesters each would have had to drive a lorry across Tahrir to be able to have so many knifes and guns in their possession. (Hint to the army: If you fake, don't overdo it!).
When protesters where run over by the army and real thugs - (remember: "one hand" theory) - on April 9, rounds of ammo were shot to such an extent that one could hardly bear the sound when watching a video the next day, secretly taken from a balcony above Tahrir. Yet when the speaker of the SCAF had to respond to the protests against this, he found the invaluable words: "No shots were fired."
Watch this little jewel and learn what it means if the SCAF says, no shots were fired. (Caution: Please turn down the volume of your speakers or it will blast you away).
The fabrication of stories and the distortion of the truth seems to be a running thing in the SCAF family.
When the blogger Maikel Nabil was sentenced to three years prison with hard labor and a fine on April 10, none of his lawyers were present. For the court had told them and Nabil in the session that day that no verdict was going to be handed down and that the court was adjourned to April 12. When the lawyers arrived at court the next morning on other cases, they had to learn from the papers published there that Nabil had in fact been convicted on the evening of April 10 in his and the absence of all his lawyers. The lawyers protested strongly against this violation of judiciary conduct.
A few days later General Etman, speaker for the SCAF, had to answer questions in a talk show of ON TV. When asked about this violation, Gen. Etman never even flinched. "All lawyers were present when the verdict was handed down", Etman said and repeated it even after talk show host Yosri Fouda got visibly confused, knowing very well, that six independent lawyers had testified to the opposite. But "No shots were fired"-Etman stuck to his story come rain, come shine. Not only the talk show host was stunned at this performance.
It is not, that Gen. Etman is lying. Someone who lies is deliberately not telling you the truth. But that is not what Gen. Etman does. Etman does not not tell you the truth - instead he tells you a fictional story that has nothing to do with reality. He is like a man standing in front of a 10-story brick building waving his arms in excitement and telling you: "The SCAF has made all this into a nature reserve. No buildings, no obstructions. As you can see - only green meadows with butterflies and birds!" You'd look at the man and you wouldn't say he is lying. You would think instead: Get a doctor. Quick. The man needs help. And its urgent!
How someone who actually needs a doctor comes to speak for the SCAF and disclose a reality of meadows with trees and birds - when in fact and clearly for everyone but him to see he is standing in front of a 10-story brick building - is beyond comprehension. And is this not an insult to the intelligence of the army to let someone tell such fiction discrediting the army by this? Is Gen. Etman not in fact "offending the army" with this behavior and should the SCAF not therefore immediately have to be brought in front of the military prosecutor with three years jail sentence at least? - Well, from the logic of the SCAF, yes. To represent the army with such fabricated stories is nothing short of an "insult to the Armed Forces of Egypt".
But more so - and this the SCAF does not understand - it is an insult to the people of Egypt. Because clearly in letting Gen. Etman recount such fictional tales as reality the SCAF sends out the message that it deems the people of Egypt to be stupid enough to buy these stories, stupid enough to believe the tales of green meadows and birds and trees while everyone is in fact standing right in the middle of high-rise buildings. The only one who does not (want?) to see the buildings, is Gen. Etman and the SCAF. The people - take note - see the obstructions clearly. And nothing Gen. Etman can invent, will ever change that.
Sure, there was no instruction manual coming with this Egyptian revolution. Neither for the revolutionaries, nor for the army. But if you look at both parties, you cannot help but feel that one of them so far failed heftily - and it isn't the revolutionaries.
When Mubarak stepped down, this was not a voluntarily decision. The power of the people on the streets of Egypt was too strong to withhold - both for him and the military. For, if the army would not have seen that this cannot be won, they would not have agreed to what happened on February 11 - Mubarak resigning and handing over the presidential powers to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces under Marshall Tantawi.
Wham! Before they knew it they were in charge of running the country, and with all due respect to their attempt to make it look in their press conference as if they knew what they were doing, anyone could tell they stepped on slippery ground. The army was not in charge these last 30 years. They did assist Mubarak - yes, but run the country - no.
Now what do you do, when you get such a big assignment and the instruction manual is nowhere to be found? You try to wiggle through by using the techniques you know. That was the problem. Because running a country of 80 million civilians is not quite the same as running a military show. It sometimes seems, the army is the only one that didn't know this. And from the experience of the last three months one has the feeling, the way the Egyptian military is running its show leaves much to be desired. You would have thought that with all the money they've been getting from the U.S. all these years (1.3 billion per anum) some knowledge of how to deal with a crisis without resorting to brutal force would have accumulated. - But then... No, that's another story. Not now.
Now is the time to focus on the SCAF, because this is the day one should worship the military. So let's see how they fared these last 100 days since the dictator was toppled.
1. Arbitrary arrests and military trials of civilians
There is a history of arbitrary arrests of protesters by the military by now that is scary. Scary, because it shows no other behavioral pattern as what could be seen from security forces before Mubarak stepped down. What many after the revolution have already forgotten are the days before Feb 11, when the dictator finally was defeated. In those days from Bloody Wednesday, Feb 2, to the victory on Feb 11 hundreds of protesters were arbitrarily arrested by the military, dragged into the Egyptian Museum and beaten and tortured. Human rights groups, both national and international, cried out about this. But the army kept a lid on it, denied as much as it could and the arrested vanished into military jails, many not ever heard of again to this day! Currently it is estimated that since January 25 more than 7.000 people have been arrested and are somewhere imprisoned. In most cases the families do not know where they are. All this common under Mubarak. But we are talking SCAF here - the "the demands of the people will be met"-SCAF. Then who ever demanded such arrests and imprisonment? No one in Tahrir, so much is certain.
After Mubarak stepped down and handed over power to the Armed Forces, it was clear to see they were in a fix. They obviously wanted it this way, or they would not have played along, but at the same time the revolution that made it possible scared the hell out of them. And so, edgy and nervous as they were, they continued in their line of arrests.
On Feb 26 they arrested unarmed, peaceful protesters at Tahrir at night - among them (see below) the young Amr El Beheiry who is still in prison! - many were beaten, tasered and even sexually abused.
On March 9 it got violent at Tahrir with the army arresting more than 150 people - again dragging them into the Egyptian Museum, beating them heavily for hours, insulting them (N.B.: the army is allowed to insult the people, the other way round is a crime!), even sexually abusing women and finally convicting them in a joke of a military trial held in the kitchen basement of the military compound, where the accused where held.
On April 9 the army once again moved into Tahrir in the middle of the night and - together with thugs ("one hand"!) - tore up tents of protesters, beat protesters, shot hundreds of bullets into the air - and some into protesters (at least two dead) - before arresting 41 protesters and taking them away.
All these arrests were without reason - but for the nervousness of the army - the treatment of those arrested a hideous crime, not to speak of the joke-trials that mocked any judicial standard. For weeks, for months even and up to this day the SCAF has played foul in correcting the mistakes it made in all this time. It is true that in the wake of growing unrest amongst the revolutionaries and seeing another Million-Man-March coming up on May 27 all those arrested on March 9 have finally been set free two days ago - but if you think, now all is well, you are wrong.
What about all those, that are still held in in military prisons no one can access - the estimated more than 7.000? We are talking about people here that have been abducted by the army even already as early as February and still have not surfaced again! Human rights groups and families have searched for them without end but the military is simply refusing to answer questions (as in fact it never is willing to play with open fair cards even at their military trials).
As long as these detainees are not released every promise of the SCAF is void, every action taken to appease is of no value.
Watch this video of families of detained and see what those arbitrarily arrests do to innocent, hard working Egyptians, how families are destroyed and young people's lives torn apart, to know how cruel the SCAF is dealing with its own people - from whom it expects to be respected. Respect for what? For this?
The tragedies of destroying families is continuing to this day. And even 200 that have been released do not alter the fact that thousands still are detained and the SCAF is not letting them go! And when you hear the accounts of those now freed about what they experienced at the hands of the army at military prison, you are shocked. No one in Egypt should be subjected to such humiliating, violating treatment of prisoners! Any army that treats the people like this, insulting the people, calling them names, abusing them, beating them, should be held accountable. It has no place in a free democratic society. Clearly the standards taught in the army all the years that Mubarak ruled were remote of any respect for human rights. Or all these arrests and mistreatments would not be possible.
Therefore it must be clear:
Military trials for civilians must stop! All detainees in military prison since the revolution must be freed immediately!
The SCAF, whether it likes it or not, will have to get this message and get it quick! Or the fury of the people will not end.
2. Amr El Beheiry
The lack of sound thinking, logic and respect for justice was proven brilliantly by the SCAF in handling the case of Amr El Beheiry, who was arrested on Feb 26 at night at Midan Tahrir. Although - as is proven by many witnesses - Amr was peaceful and unarmed, he was arrested by the military because of possession of weapons. They beat him severely - then had to notice that in fact he was not having any weapons on him. Bruised and battered Amr was released. Bad luck to be victim to such a mistake.
Shortly after his release the protesters decided to leave Tahrir for home. Amr with others got into a car but they did not get far. Still within looking distance of those they had just parted from, the car was suddenly busted by another group of army personnel, the occupants dragged out and arrested. Amr - who clearly had done nothing - again was in the hands of the military.
At the military court - in one of those notorious quick trials that no one was allowed to attend - he was sentenced to 5 years in prison although he had done nothing and no arms existed that he was said to have carried. The testimonial from Prof. Leila Soueif, who had been at Tahrir and had witnessed the abuse against Amr and could prove that he was abducted from the car, had no weapons and not done anything, went into the trash. Because - who at a military trial is remotely interested in the truth? No one.
So the injustice began and has not stopped ever since. While the verdicts against protesters arrested on March 9 were held back and not ratified and those protesters now came free, the verdict against Amr El Beheiry was for unknown reasons ratified in the beginning of this week. That shut the door for him, for now the military could not release him like the others without losing their face.
There is no justification for such an act of injustice as this. If other protesters could be set free that were just as peaceful as Amr El Beheiry, there is no reason in the world why this young man must serve a 5 years sentence! Just so the SCAF can keep its face?
Amr Beheiry has been imprisoned now since Feb 26 - that is three months almost to the day! - and he is still in prison although he is as innocent as the other protesters that have now been released!
SCAF - how long is this unbearable injustice supposed to continue?
Retry Amr El Beheiry
and set him free!
3. Torture, Virginity tests, sexual abuse in prisons
With the arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters being appalling enough already, the army did not hesitate to make things even worse. Harrowing accounts of torture and even sexual abuse appeared after protesters arrested on March 9 were released from military detention. The Egyptian Museum basically was turned into a dungeon with protesters being chained to walls and fences and beaten ruthlessly for hours by army officers clearly not in their right state of mind. The most gruesome acts were committed against young women who were accused of being whores as they had spent time with male protesters on Tahrir (it is so obvious, why didn't we think of it?). As the young women rejected the accusation, the army decided to "check for themselves", and several young women were forced to undergo "virginity tests" to prove they were no whores. Should the test fail, they were told, it would mean immediate trial for being a whore. As no woman doctor could be found, the "virginity tests" were performed by a male doctor of the army in a room with windows and an open door to the corridor! No privacy was given to the harassed women and their dignity was humiliated at its worst.
The SCAF, confronted with these atrocities, flatly denied them, stating all this was fabricated lies. When the testimonies became too detailed and could not be ignored any longer, the SCAF announced in a statement that it would have the accusations checked. That was almost two months ago.
To this day the SCAF has done nothing to hold those accountable that touched on the dignity of these young women protesters!
Does the SCAF truly respect the Egyptian people? How so?
Protesters that have just recently been released from military detention - both from the arrests of March 9 as of the arrests of protests at the Israel Embassy a week ago - have already testified too of sexual harassment and abuse in prison. Anyone wearing long hair and a beard was denounced a homosexual (for people with a clear mind = human beings, for some in the army = clearly something else) or "faggot", detainees were stripped naked and beaten and abused. This more than two months after the first chilling accounts were made public, giving the SCAF enough time to conduct inquiries into the allegations and ensure that sexual harassment and abuse would not happen again.
The SCAF did nothing. The detainees were left without protection against such atrocities and too suffered badly at the hands of the military staff in the prisons.
If the SCAF wants any form of respect from the people it first has to ensure the respect towards the people! To just ignore the testimonies of those that suffered and refrain from the promised serious inquiries into these allegations is nothing less but a capital failure. More so it does nothing to ensure that this form of violation in the treatment of arrested and detained will not occur again!
Whether the SCAF likes it or not: The mistakes made by the military have to be corrected.
Those responsible for torture and sexual abuse
must be held accountable in court!
As long as this is not happening, the people and the army will never be "one hand"!
4. Freedom of press and expression
That bloggers were arrested in Egypt was not uncommon in the times of Mubarak. Anyone critical and voicing his criticism publicly was in danger of being arrested, quick-tried and locked away. In 2007 it hit Kareem Amer who was sentenced to four years for expressing his opinion - an opinion that was clearly not the one of the Mubarak regime.
After the fall of Mubarak it should have been clear that this would be a thing from a very dark past. But for some odd reasons the SCAF did not get the message from Tahrir and the rest of the country that freedom of expression was a fundamental demand that had to be met.
On March 28 at night the army arrested blogger Maikel Nabil for blogging about the army and documenting the atrocities against peaceful protesters. Two weeks later and against all international appeals and outcries Nabil was sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labor and a fine of 200 L.E. for "offending the army". No appeal by human rights groups or even the U.S. government - a firm ally of the Egyptian army - could alter this and he was immediately transferred to Tora prison where he is held now in a cell with two criminal convicts under extreme conditions that can only be called appalling.
Human Rights Watch called the sentence "the worst strike against free expression in Egypt since the Mubarak government jailed the first blogger for four years in 2007".
Yet the SCAF finds no fault with this, sending a clear signal that it couldn't care less about freedom of expression in Egypt. Amazing, as it is the same SCAF that put up a Constitutional Referendum to vote on, containing explicitly freedom of expression and opinion. In a press conference with General Mamdouh Shaheen and General Ismail Etman it was pointed out that the Constitutional Interim Declaration that resulted from the referendum prevents arrests or detentions without legal basis and ensures freedom of the press as well as freedom of belief and opinion.
Does the SCAF not read its own declaration? How then fits the arrest and sentencing of a blogger into their own declaration?
Only a few days after Nabil was sentenced, Human Rights Watch exposed a letter by Gen. Etman to the media in Egypt, dated March 22, in which the General - in the name of the SCAF - "advises" the media to not publish anything about the army in any possible printed, audible or visible way without contacting the SCAF and getting its approval first! An appeal, that sadly but expectedly caused immediate anxiety amongst many journalists especially at state run papers and TV, resulting in them not daring to cover any violations of the army against peaceful protesters.
It took not long for the letter to surface physically and it was quickly distributed over the internet. While the SCAF surely was not pleased about this, the Generals at the same time were totally unfazed regarding the content. Gen. Etman declared without a shadow of guilt that the army encouraged critical reporting in the new Egypt - as long as no one "offended the army". Aha.
Presidential candidate and first women ever to run for this post, Buthayna Kamel, a clear minded person known for her critical views under Mubarak, too took the Interim Constitutional Declaration to be valid and in the beginning of May spoke on State TV critical of the army (if you check above there might be a hint of an indication that criticism could be founded). The reaction was astounding. The director of State TV himself called to order the program stopped. The shaken TV presenter announced that the show was being pulled off the air. And Buthayna Kamel was charged with the crime of “insulting the army” and was summoned to appear before the military prosecutor who interrogated her for more than two hours before she was - temporarily - let go.
Let's cite Gen. Etman again: "The Constitutional Interim Declaration prevents arrests or detentions without legal basis and ensures freedom of the press as well as freedom of belief and opinion."
It is fairy tale time again at the SCAF. If there is someone in Egypt who has no clue what freedom of expression means and who cares nothing about freedom of the press - no matter how much it is laid down in an Interim Constitution - it is the SCAF. The paranoia shown by the Generals, who do not even shy away from charging a presidential candidate for expressing critical views on the army, is nothing short of pathetic. For an upcoming democracy however it is fatal.
The SCAF made the people to vote for the Interim Constitution - now it is the job of the SCAF to see it implemented and not violated! Especially not violated by the SCAF itself!
Therefore the demands must read:
Secure Freedom of Expression as guaranteed
in the Interim Constitutional Declaration!
Lift the sentence against blogger Maikel Nabil!
Assure the press that it is free and must not
fear retributions by the army!
If this is not secured, all talk of the SCAF of respecting the will of the people and the Interim Constitution is invalid and can not be taken seriously.
5. Tell the truth - don't fabricate stories.
A clever man once said: "I never trust statistics I haven't forged myself." To a certain degree you could think this was the attitude of the SCAF as well, because they clearly don't trust a truth they haven't fabricated themselves. And fabricate they do with all might.
When peaceful protesters were arrested at Tahrir on Feb 26 the army showed them on State TV shortly afterwards declaring them publicly to be "thugs".
When there was truly no evidence to thuggery from protesters arrested on March 9, the army brought in masses of weapons from its depot, laid them on a table, made protesters stand next to them and took photos to prove the protesters had been armed. Looking at the masses of weapons on the table, the protesters each would have had to drive a lorry across Tahrir to be able to have so many knifes and guns in their possession. (Hint to the army: If you fake, don't overdo it!).
When protesters where run over by the army and real thugs - (remember: "one hand" theory) - on April 9, rounds of ammo were shot to such an extent that one could hardly bear the sound when watching a video the next day, secretly taken from a balcony above Tahrir. Yet when the speaker of the SCAF had to respond to the protests against this, he found the invaluable words: "No shots were fired."
Watch this little jewel and learn what it means if the SCAF says, no shots were fired. (Caution: Please turn down the volume of your speakers or it will blast you away).
The fabrication of stories and the distortion of the truth seems to be a running thing in the SCAF family.
When the blogger Maikel Nabil was sentenced to three years prison with hard labor and a fine on April 10, none of his lawyers were present. For the court had told them and Nabil in the session that day that no verdict was going to be handed down and that the court was adjourned to April 12. When the lawyers arrived at court the next morning on other cases, they had to learn from the papers published there that Nabil had in fact been convicted on the evening of April 10 in his and the absence of all his lawyers. The lawyers protested strongly against this violation of judiciary conduct.
A few days later General Etman, speaker for the SCAF, had to answer questions in a talk show of ON TV. When asked about this violation, Gen. Etman never even flinched. "All lawyers were present when the verdict was handed down", Etman said and repeated it even after talk show host Yosri Fouda got visibly confused, knowing very well, that six independent lawyers had testified to the opposite. But "No shots were fired"-Etman stuck to his story come rain, come shine. Not only the talk show host was stunned at this performance.
It is not, that Gen. Etman is lying. Someone who lies is deliberately not telling you the truth. But that is not what Gen. Etman does. Etman does not not tell you the truth - instead he tells you a fictional story that has nothing to do with reality. He is like a man standing in front of a 10-story brick building waving his arms in excitement and telling you: "The SCAF has made all this into a nature reserve. No buildings, no obstructions. As you can see - only green meadows with butterflies and birds!" You'd look at the man and you wouldn't say he is lying. You would think instead: Get a doctor. Quick. The man needs help. And its urgent!
How someone who actually needs a doctor comes to speak for the SCAF and disclose a reality of meadows with trees and birds - when in fact and clearly for everyone but him to see he is standing in front of a 10-story brick building - is beyond comprehension. And is this not an insult to the intelligence of the army to let someone tell such fiction discrediting the army by this? Is Gen. Etman not in fact "offending the army" with this behavior and should the SCAF not therefore immediately have to be brought in front of the military prosecutor with three years jail sentence at least? - Well, from the logic of the SCAF, yes. To represent the army with such fabricated stories is nothing short of an "insult to the Armed Forces of Egypt".
But more so - and this the SCAF does not understand - it is an insult to the people of Egypt. Because clearly in letting Gen. Etman recount such fictional tales as reality the SCAF sends out the message that it deems the people of Egypt to be stupid enough to buy these stories, stupid enough to believe the tales of green meadows and birds and trees while everyone is in fact standing right in the middle of high-rise buildings. The only one who does not (want?) to see the buildings, is Gen. Etman and the SCAF. The people - take note - see the obstructions clearly. And nothing Gen. Etman can invent, will ever change that.
6. No transparency
The basis of any democratic system is transparency. Anyone in power is in power only by the will of the people. They vote, they decide - it is to them any politician or public servant in the end is accountable. Hey ho. In comes the army, not remotely connected to such frivolous thinking, holding a strong lid on all of its doings - be it in their courts (no public allowed), be it in their compounds (no public allowed), be it in the military controlled areas of the country (any offender goes to jail). Tell them about democratic transparency and all you will get is blank faces.
That too is the problem with the SCAF. They never heard of such things and clearly do not want to either. Transparency to the army is a no-go area and no forces it seems will get these Generals to even contemplate on the matter.
That has serious consequences for those vanishing within their prisons (see above) or - as bad or even worse - getting into serious conflicts with superiors. From the treatment civilian prisoners and detainees are getting at the hand of the army one can only guess what this means for those army officers and soldiers who do not dance to the tune of the SCAF.
Bringing us once more to April 9, when eight army officers in uniform defied the orders of their superiors and openly mingled with the civilian protesters at Tahrir square, openly too even calling for the downfall of General Tantawi.
There can be no doubt about it that this - within an organization as an army - is a serious breach of conduct. However it cannot justify being abducted, removed out of sight for ever, or in the worst case even killed.
When the army - again see above - stormed Tahrir square at night on April 9, they managed to arrest at least four to six of those officers that were hiding amongst the protesters. One even is supposed to have been shot. The arrested were taken away by army police and are supposed to have been tried in military court.
Fact is - they vanished from the sight of the earth. The SCAF does not feel obliged to inform anyone in this country and especially not any civilian (please puke now!) about what exactly happened to these men after they were finally arrested. The SCAF thinks it has no obligation to explain this to anyone - as the army is a state in the state and in their conviction above the law.
If Egypt is to have any real democracy ever, the SCAF will have to learn that it is part of the country and not above it, that it has to abide by the law of the country and not just make its own, that there will soon be a civilian parliament and government chosen by the people of Egypt that will demand answers to questions and will not just sit back and accept that Egyptians are abducted, tried in secrecy, executed perhaps even without anyone knowing.
True - those officers were part of the army and had to be tried in front of military court. But true too - and miserably ignored by the SCAF - these officers were foremost Egyptians. Egyptian citizens with a right to a fair trial, to a defense by their choosing and to transparency of procedures to ensure their life and there safety.
What has become of these officers? Life-sentences? Executions? How is it possible that no one in Egypt outside of the army knows and that the SCAF thinks it has not to account for the lifes of these Egyptian men?
Transparency is badly missing from the SCAF because they were taught by Mubarak that they have only to report to him. Well here is news Marshall Tantawi: The times have changed. Mubarak is gone. The army from now on will be held accountable by the people of Egypt. And without essential transparency the army will face harsh times in the democracy implemented soon. The army is not a state within a state - it is a part of the state and has to bow to the laws of the state it serves. Because yes - the army serves the people. Not the other way round.
What happened to the officers arrested at Tahrir on April 9?
7. Curfew and Emergency law
Emergency law has been part of Egyptians lives for decades, ever since Mubarak decided that he was far more secure if he kept the people at bay at all times. It worked for 30 years, then all hell broke loose.
Now the dictator is toppled and the SCAF took over. This would be an ideal time to lift the curfew - but above all the status of Emergency Law. Yet nothing happens. The SCAF is simply not getting the hang of it, promises, Emergency Law will be lifted "before the parliamentary elections" to be held in September. - and leaves it at that. What, one would like to ask the Generals, do they believe will be different in September than now in May? Lifting the Emergency Law would send a clear signal to the Egyptian people that the end of oppression has truly come to an end. But #noSCAF, you clearly do not have the guts to commit to it really.
Even Syria - not speaking of its hideous crimes - has lifted the Emergency Status. But Egypt doesn't make it. That shows, the SCAF does not trust the people and still wants to control them at all times. Mubarak revisited in uniform.
The curfew too is not lifted. Installed by Ex-President Mubarak in January to curb the protests that he found dangerous to his power-hunger, the SCAF to this day has not found the courage to dispose of it. It merely prolonged or shortened the curfew according to what the army thought necessary, Egyptians are still left with the grotesque situation, that from 2am to 5am they are not allowed to be on the streets of their own country, cannot go out to party, meet friends, come home late from a night out. Egypt, to put it bluntly, does not belong to the Egyptians from 2am to 5am. They are confined to their homes, and only the army and the police are allowed to venture through empty streets claiming them to be their own.
They are not, SCAF. And they never will be. They belong to the people, and a curfew is a violation of their rights the people will no longer accept!
8. Sectarian issues
It is true - the army rebuild the church at Sol Atfih that was attacked and damaged by radical Muslims and the result is stunning, no doubt about it. But the behaviour of the SCAF on this issue is not consistent. Why was Mokattam allowed to happen with 13 people dead? Why where the unbelievable interruptions at Qena for four days allowed to happen - resulting in millions of loss due to the cutting of the railway lines from Luxor to Cairo? Why did the army only turn up at Imbaba when the clashes were already so heavy and the church was burning? Many that were eyewitnesses - activists, journalists, bystanders - testify to the effect that the army came too late and when they came, for far too long just looked on without interfering. Only because of this did it all escalate. The first news on aggressive marching on the church in Imbaba was coming in already in the afternoon. Yet the army only turned up hours later. Any idiot could see this was going to turn violent. The SCAF did not. The bitter conclusion: Only the army does not make it to the church on time!
The army under the guidance of the SCAF, take note. These are no two different entities. It is the SCAF that will have to answer the questions and it is the SCAF that must realize that such actions only fuel the rumors that abound in Egypt: that the army sides with Salafis and actually let's them go ahead with attacks against Copts, that the army in fact is "one hand with Salafis" and not "one hand with the people". This is in no way proven. Yet not taking actions against violent attacks against Copts makes you wonder if there is something to these rumours. It is for the SCAF to prove by their actions that these rumours have no ground.
After all, the rumours did not fall from the sky. They are a result from what people witnessed when the army did not in time intervene and prohibit the attacks on minorities. And the rumours will not go away with yet another tale by Gen. Etman about the beauty of the birds and the bees. These rumours can only be stopped by decisive, consistent action by the SCAF that minorities can truly rely on, by showing clearly by action not words, that the army is willing to protect all Egyptians, of which - as everyone should know - the Copts are an important and valuable part.
16 churches are to be reopened this Wednesday according to the Ministry of the Interior. It will be the litmus test to show if the army is really "one hand" with the people and not with radical fundamentalists like the Salafis, as many think. It is vital that this comes accross, because if the SCAF is not free of this suspicion it will never ever have the trust of the people it says it wants to protect.
The SCAF will deny this rumor right out loud for certain, but words are not enough to calm the fear in many hundred thousands of Egyptians thinking otherwise. Who also have learned from Salafis, that according to their belief any criticism of those in power is an act against God, must be suppressed under all circumstances, must never ever happen and be allowed. Strange as it seems - in this point the SCAF seems to think absolutely along the lines of the Salafis. The SCAF too rejects the right of criticism in the strongest terms and demands instead obeyance from the people. Read it as you want - no matter whether you believe the rumours to be true or not - the attitude of both Salafis and the SCAF smack of anything but fundamental human rights. And isn't it odd that they both have the same failed understanding of democracy? Makes you think.
Summing it up
Summing it up - it does not look too good for the SCAF after 100 days. Ok, there was no instruction manual coming with this revolution. But a lot of the failures could have been avoided by adhering to simple standards of human rights, decency and judicial respect as is customary in civilized countries. The track record of the SCAF on this so far however is horrid.
When the army said: "The demands of the people will be met" - they somehow did not listen even to themselves. They must start now. It is time to listen, SCAF. It is time to deliver. Meet the demands of the people. And you better get going before the anger of the people knows no bounds.
