September/October 1994, Pages 62-63

Human Rights

By R. Clemente Holder

Egyptian Human Rights Leader Calls For Moderation

Egypt is winning the battle against terrorists who devastated its tourist industry in 1993, according to statistics recorded for the first six months of 1994. Of 104 persons killed in shootouts between Jan. 1 and June 30, all but 9 deaths occurred in the first four months of the year. Total deaths included 54 alleged radicals, 39 policemen, 10 bystanders and a German tourist. Of these, all but four policemen and five extremists were killed before April 30.

The focus of the Egyptian police crackdown on terrorism has shifted to upper Egypt, since there have been no recent attacks in lower Egypt, Cairo, or tourist sites between the Egyptian capital and Luxor. Meanwhile the Egyptian government has passed laws to take control of universities and professional associations away from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist group, which has been tolerated despite having been outlawed many years ago.

The government took measures to control institutional elections and assumed the authority to appoint village mayors and deans of university faculties. Both categories of leaders previously were chosen by elections.

President Hosni Mubarak would have left the Brotherhood alone if it had supported him against extremists, said leftist writer Mesbah Qutub. However, he told the Associated Press, the Brotherhood reaction to terrorist attacks was "largely ambiguous, offering justifications and blaming security instead of condemning terrorism."

Bahey El-Din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, called for loosening of present tight Egyptian security measures in the wake of the government's apparent victory against terrorism. "The government now is not under the same pressure of extremism as before," he said. "Therefore we expected it to be more willing to accept democratic reform. What happened was the contrary."

Amnesty International Criticizes Every Mideast Country but Oman

In its annual report for 1993, released July 6, 1994 and covering 151 countries, London-based Amnesty International charged that prisoners of conscience were held in 63 countries, more than 100,000 political prisoners were held without charge or trial in 53 countries, more than 112 governments tortured or ill-treated prisoners, and political killings by the state took place in 61 nations. Every country in the Middle East but the Sultanate of Oman was listed for violations in at least one of these categories, as was the United States.

Reporting on Israel and Israeli-occupied territories, Amnesty International charged that in 1993 "approximately 13,000 Palestinians were arrested on security grounds...Over 15,300 were tried before military courts [and] Palestinians were systematically tortured or ill-treated during interrogation in many instances."

The report noted also "increased" armed attacks by Palestinians, reporting that "some 35 Israeli civilians and 25 members of the security forces were killed in such attacks as were over 100 Palestinian civilians," most of them suspected collaborators with Israeli occupation authorities. Israel's other Arab neighbors also were criticized. The report charged that in Syria "basic human rights remain tightly restricted. It is widely accepted that several thousand persons remain imprisoned without trial" and torture is routinely used against political prisoners.

The report said Jordan "continued to show progress in liberalizing the country's political system" but Jordanians "still do not have the right to change their government." It also charged Jordan with "abuse of prisoners, prolonged detention without charge," and detailed 270 cases where detainees have been kept "almost invariably in prolonged incommunicado detention."

Amnesty International USA Charges Violations by U.S. Arms Recipients

A report released in June by Amnesty International USA alleged that 19 countries to which the U.S. sells or grants arms and military training are guilty of human rights abuses. The 77-page report says that in fiscal year 1995 the Clinton administration plans to sell nearly $30 billion worth of conventional arms and provide $5.4 billion in economic and military aid to countries that systematically suppress political dissent, torture prisoners, or foment ethnic or religious violence.

Such U.S. aid may contravene the 1961 prohibition on assistance to "any country...which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights," the U.S. human rights organization said.

Middle East countries receiving U.S. arms aid and named as human rights abusers are Egypt, which receives $450 million in arms as part of its $2.1 billion in U.S. military and economic aid; Israel, which receives upwards of $1.8 billion in military assistance as part of its $6.3 billion annual total of U.S. government grants and loan guaranties; Kuwait, which is expected to purchase $300 million in arms in fiscal year 1995; Saudi Arabia, which is expected to purchase $26 billion in military equipment and training; and Turkey, slated to receive up to $1.3 billion in arms assistance.

Major U.S. arms-receiving countries outside the Middle East also listed as human rights abusers by Amnesty International USA are Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, South Korea and Thailand.

HRW Charges Continued Israeli Torture of Prisoners Despite Agreement With PLO

Human Rights Watch/Middle East (HRW) charged in a study released in June that Israeli interrogators continue to torture Palestinian political prisoners, just as they did before accords were signed between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization. "We have found no substantial shift in the methods used," said James Rone, an author of the report, who added that the number of detainees under interrogation at any one time appears to have dropped since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho.

Israeli authorities operate "a calibrated system of...low intensity torture, combining a variety of physical and psychological interrogation techniques to extract confessions or information from detainees," Rone reported. The Israeli army, which is strongly criticized in the report, denied the charges "unequivocally" and said its interrogators "strictly abide" by rules forbidding ill treatment of suspects.

(In fact, Israeli law permits "mild physical coercion" in interrogating prisoners, and permits confessions obtained through such torture to be introduced as evidence in court. Although such methods are not used against Jewish prisoners, Christian and Muslim prisoners have been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on the basis of such coerced "confessions.")

Ignoring the Israeli army denial of the charges, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin acknowledged to journalists that "during the occupation of the territories, there were deeds that were regrettable. The only way to put an end to it is to withdraw" from those territories, as Israeli forces are scheduled to under the autonomy accord, Beilin said.

Methods used by Israeli army and Shabak (Israel's internal security service) interrogators besides beatings during and after arrests, during transportation to detention facilities, and during interrogations include sleep deprivation, blindfolding or hooding using filthy, vile-smelling blindfolds or hoods, keeping detainees in painful positions or in tiny spaces, holding detainees in freezing cells prior to interrogation, limiting access to latrines, and subjecting detainees to degrading conditions such as being forced to eat and use the lavatory at the same time.

Christian Science Monitor correspondent Peter Ford reported on June 17 that Israeli television has declined to report the widespread first-hand accounts of such torture, both from the victims and from Israeli participants. However, he quoted one Israeli human rights activist as saying "this was taboo as long as Israel was committed to maintaining control over the territories, [but] now Israel is backing off the occupation, the climate is more appropriate."

Since, under the autonomy agreement, Palestinian authorities are obliged to hand over anyone accused of committing a crime in Israel, Palestinian negotiators insisted on including assurances in the agreement that Israeli authorities would treat such suspects according to "internationally accepted norms of human rights and the rule of law."

The implication of the HRW report is that, as yet, Israel is not complying with the human rights provisions of its agreement with the PLO concerning the treatment of prisoners.

Assassinations and Disappearances Continue In Eastern Turkey

Human rights groups have called upon the Turkish government to investigate hundreds of "disappearances" involving Kurdish activists in the past three years. The Turkish Interior Ministry listed 103 such cases in the first five months of 1994 alone.

London-based Amnesty International reported that "death-squad-style killings are reported almost daily, and there has been an alarming increase in disappearances." In its human rights report for 1993, the U.S. State Department said "political murders and extra-judicial killings in 1993, attributed to both government authorities and terrorist groups, continued to occur at the relatively high 1992 rates."

Turkish authorities deny involvement in the murders, attributing them to attacks by the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) on another Kurdish group, the People's Labor Party (HEP) and its successor, the Democracy Party, both of which subsequently have been outlawed. The Turkish government also suggests some of the killings result from a feud between the PKK and a Kurdish Hezbollah group. The Hezbollah group also is said to have split in 1992, setting off killings between one faction that wants an Islamic Kurdish state and another seeking a broader Islamic revolution.

R. Clemente Holder writes on human rights and environmental concerns from Washington, DC.