Egyptian rights group accuses justice system of double standards

CAIRO – Egypt’s judiciary has employed consistent double standards in its treatment of protesters and security officials charged with crimes - with abuse dating back to the 2011 revolution, a Cairo-based rights group said in a news report.

While many Egyptians have been held in police custody for as long as 600 days, most of the police officers accused of killing protesters in Egypt’s 25 January uprising have been released on bail pending trial, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information’s (ANHRI) said in the report, released on Sunday.

The report entitled "Extended temporary confinement…detention in disguise," highlighted cases where defendants had been in pre-trial confinement for months and even years. It then compared their treatment to that of former government and security figures who were not detained for a single day or released shortly pending trial for their involvement.

Double standards

"The report has monitored the status of pre-trial prisoners detained pending trial over political or criminal charges; [we have] detected a discrepancy in dealing with defendants accused of corruption charges and political activists," Abdo Abdel-Aziz, a researcher at ANHRI told Middle East Eye.  

Many leading Mubarak-era officials who were accused of corruption have now been freed and had their verdicts overturned, while political prisoners have remained in jail. 

ANHRI also documented several instances of double standards in dealing with pre-trial confinement following the 25 January uprising, especially police officers accused of killing protesters. Most of them did not remain in custody and did not even get suspended from work.

“They are holding public positions which may enable them to [manipulate] evidence and influence the course of investigation,” the report said.

“They [also] have enough power to influence the witnesses or the victims,” the report added.

The example of police officers released after being accused of committing a violation has carried on in Egypt and has been visible during the presidency of former field marshal and now president Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi who helped to oust the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and successfully won controversial elections to replace him in 2014.

In March of this year, national security officers were released on bail pending trial after being charged of torturing a lawyer to death at a Cairo police station.

Several former officials - including head of the dissolved ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) Safwat al-Sherif and Ex-Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif – have also been freed despite currently facing a raft of serious charges including profiteering and the illicit gain of millions of Egyptian pounds.

But the wheels of justice seem to turn less smoothly for those seen to be in opposition to the current leadership.

Photo journalist Mahmoud Abu Zaid, nicknamed Shoukan, has been in custody for about 600 days without trial, the report said.

He was arrested while covering the dispersal of the Muslim Brotherhood Rabaa sit-in back in August 2013 following the removal of Morsi. He now stands accused of being involved with a terrorist group among other charges.

Another photojournalist, Ahmed Gamal Ziyada, acquitted in April 2015, remained in custody for about 500 days pending trial.

He was arrested while doing his job during pro-Muslim Brotherhood protests at Al-Azhar University. He was accused of protesting without permit and being involved in burning down the faculty of commerce.

Another prominent case has been the detention of Ibrahim al-Yamany, a physician arrested while volunteering at a field hospital during al-Fatah Mosque incidents a few days the Rabaa sit-in was dispersed in August 2013. He has been standing trial since February 2014 and imprisoned temporarily without verdict, the report said.

Legal justification

According to ANHRI, a law amendment has facilitated the legal justification for extended confinement of defendants. 

In September 2013, interim president Adly Mansour approved the draft law presented by the former justice minister Adel Abdel-Hamid, amending the last paragraph of article 143 of the code of criminal procedure.

The article, originally dictated that ‘‘pre-trial detention should not exceed two years for defendants appealing a life sentence or execution.” However, this has now been modified to say that "criminal and cassation courts are allowed to order the detention of a defendant for 45 renewable days”.

"After this amendment, pretrial confinement became open-ended and indefinite for crimes punishable by a life sentence or by the death penalty, giving a legal justification to their ongoing detention," Abdel-Aziz explained.

“Accordingly, a huge number of defendants have been held in custody, which could be legally justified by a certain pattern of accusations that brought them before criminal courts,” he added.

Among the charges that allows for extended confinement are: joining an illegal group, hindering the operations of state institutions, compromising public freedoms, disturbing state stability, holding protests without official permission and inciting violence. 

“This is how amending one single article in the code of criminal procedure became a means to [manipulate] the Egyptian constitution and human rights international conventions and treaties,” the report said.

Article 54 of the Egyptian constitution written under the section: “public rights, freedoms and duties” states that personal freedoms represent a right that is protected and may not be infringed. Except for the case of being caught in flagrante delicto, it is not permissible to arrest, search, detain, or restrict the freedom of anyone. A person can only be caught by virtue of a justified judicial order requested during the course of an investigation.

Unofficial records claim that there are about 40,000 political detainees jailed after the ouster of Morsi, many of them without trial, even though the interior ministry recurrently denied it.

In February, interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif was quoted by state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) that the allegations of some human rights organisations as to the presence of thousands of detainees in Egyptian prisons for violating the protest law are without grounds.

Most of the detained activists have been arrested under the controversial protest law issued during the reign of Mansour in November 2013.

The law requires the organisers to get an official permission from the ministry of interior at least three days prior to the protest or else they get arrested, referred to the prosecution then stand trial. If found guilty of violating the law, a defendant could be imprisoned for as much as five years.  

ANHRI has now called on president Sisi to issue a legislative amendment making pre-trial confinement based on reasons, in addition to defining its duration and allowing it to be challenged before the court. It also stressed that the legal principle of “an accused [being seen as] innocent until proven guilty” must be enforced.