Human Rights Abuses Begin to Snowball in Egypt

This week, three Egyptian journalists came forward with claims of police brutality. Their lawyertold the Associated Press on October 4 that the journalists were conducting street interviews when they were detained, beaten, and tasered by officers in interrogation at a Cairo station. They were taken into custody on September 26 and remanded for fifteen days pending investigation. The journalists were accused of supplying the Muslim Brotherhood with videos criticizing the Egyptian government.This development is one of many recent authoritarian crackdowns in Egypt. Egypt’s  state-owned newspaper, al-Ahram,reported a disciplinary referral issued to state TV officials on October 4 for “negligence and malpractice” after airing an outdated interview clip of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi by mistake. In September, an Egyptian courtfroze assets of five leading human rights activists and three NGOs as part of a criminal investigation into their funding.

Egyptian police confront a man on the street.

These events are just a snapshot of the bigger picture of Egypt’s inability to find stable governance since the 2011 Arab Spring movement, when fierce protests resulted in the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled the country for thirty years. Former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsibecame Egypt’s first democratically elected president in June 2012.

Morsi’s leadership only exacerbated institutional problems. Afterissuing an order preventing courts from overturning any of his executive decisions, Morsi took unchecked power that motivated further dissent. He was ousted a year into his regime by a military coup. About 1,000 Egyptiansdied in the process, according to CNN.

President Sisi was elected in the aftermath in 2014. Prior to the election, Sisiwas a senior officer in the Egyptian military. Inannouncing his candidacy, Sisi promised to rebuild the state, declaring that Egyptians “deserve to live a life of dignity, security, and freedom.” He won the electionwith 96 percent of the vote, though criticssuggest that voter turnout was lower than the reported 47.5 percent.  

Sisi’s perpetuation of punitive discipline has dashed any hopes spurred by his rhetoric and popular support during the election. After Morsi’s overthrow, Egyptian authorities moved swiftly toban the Muslim Brotherhood and arrest its supporters. Morsi himself wassentenced to twenty years in prison.

Human Rights Watchfound that 41,000 Egyptians were arrested between Morsi’s overthrow and May 2014. More than 26,000 may have been arrested since 2015. Arrests and seizures have become so common that a new mobile app “I-Protect” launched in Egypt to track forced disappearances. A July report by Amnesty Internationalfound that on average, three to four people are forced to  disappear each day in Egypt.

The Institute for Criminal Policy Researchranks Egypt with the world’s sixteenth highest prison population. Of the more than 100,000 prisoners in Egypt, local human rights analysts have suggested that at least 40,000are being held for their political beliefs, according to Al Jazeera. Some of these political dissidents may face execution.

Most troubling about these arrests are the conditions that convicts face.Tora Prison, also known as “Scorpion Prison,” the Egyptian equivalent to Guantanamo Bay, has come under fire for its treatment of political prisoners. An 80-pageinvestigative report on the prison by Human Rights Watch released in September documents lack of basic hygiene, medical mistreatment, and abuse amounting to torture. The report titles itself after a chilling quote from the prisoners: “We are in tombs.”

The situation going forward for Egypt looks dire. The pattern of mass protests and violent regime changes since 2011 hasn’t worked in favor of stable democracy in Egypt. What’s more, tensions driven by the government’s authoritarian politics are already setting this cycle to continue. Stratfor hasidentified an anti-government terrorist group known as Hasam as a “budding Egyptian militant group” with ambitious attempts at political assassination.  

Such militant groups are nothing new in Egypt, but the constant emergence of these violent anti-state militias points to systemic dissatisfaction with Egyptian governance. If the government’s propensity for political incarceration persists, the stability of the state will continue to degrade. While reform is unlikely to come organically from Sisi’smilitary-based government, the opportunity remains for the international community to pressure Egypt into structural reform for the preservation of human rights.