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| Prosecutor General to Investigate Torturing Azhar Students |
The story began when two of the victims' mates clashed with one of the shop assistants in Assuit. The shop assistants and owners in the area attacked the students physically. While Ahmed Ragab and his classmates were asking about the reason of the clash trying to resolve the situation, the shops' owners called the police. When the police officer came to the incident locations asked the victims about the details of situation and asked them to file a police report against the perpetrators.
While the police officer was investigating the incident, another police officer came and started insulting the victims and asked the noncommissioned officers and soldiers to whip the victims. That police officer ordered his assistants to take Ahmed Ragab and his classmates to the police pickup that carried them to Awal Assuit Police Station.
In the police station, the victims came under all the kinds of verbal and physical torture. The soldiers dragged the victims to the bathrooms' yard; there, the chained victims were whipped, slapped on their faces and came under many kinds of verbal and physical torture. The shops' owners informed the police officers that they would not officially accuse the students of anything and asked him to release them.
The released students filed the police report no. 2695, year 2013, Awal Assuit Police Station. In this regard, EOHR calls upon the prosecutor general and the Egyptian Minister of interior to open an immediate investigation on the severe physical torture incident and declare the names of the real perpetrators. The involved police officers must be banned from handling their policing works until the end of the investigations and trial.
EOHR emphasizes that what happened to the student is against the Egyptian law and the international standards of human rights.
Hafez Abu Seada, the head of EOHR, stated that the practices of the police officers against the students in Assuit cannot be expected or even justified. These violent acts do not comply with the newly drafted Egyptian constitution, revolutionary principals or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention against Torture. These international provisions are now considered as main parts of the Egyptian constitution.
EOHR recommends the followed procedures to be taken by the Egyptian Government for combating torture and impunity:
Immediate ratification of the Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture; declares Egypt's commitment to Articles 21 and 22 of the Convention against Torture (mechanisms for individual complaints and complaints from Member States of the Convention)
Issuing a presidential decree for founding an independent authority for combating torture and impunity that can be able to launch regular visits to the police stations and detention centers.
Allowing representatives of the local and international civil society organizations to visits the police stations and detention centers to make sure that the international standards of human rights are applied
Approving UN official visits to Egypt to make sure that the Egyptian government is committed to the international standards of human rights
Rehabilitation of the Egyptian police according to the international policing standards and creating new mechanisms for evaluation of the policing performance
The Egyptian government should prepare a new code amending the articles related to torture within the penal and the criminal procedural codes to go in line with the international standards of human rights.
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