August 30, 2012
The
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has governed Egypt since the
fall of Hosni Mubarak—and apparently wants to hold on indefinitely—can’t
justify itself on its record. Especially when it comes to human rights.
SCAF
presented itself as the shepherd of Egypt’s transition to democracy. Instead,
SCAF trampled rights of Egyptians across the board, repressing speech and
public gatherings and preserving an unfair justice system. In some areas, SCAF
has outdone Mubarak.
Take
the Emergency Law instituted in Mubarak’s first year in power and maintained
ever throughout his rule, which, among other things, allowed officials from the
Interior Ministry to detain people indefinitely without charge. It also
permitted trials in state security courts that did not provide the right to an
appeal, did not allow defendants adequate access to lawyers outside of the
courtroom, and did not investigate allegations of torture. In 2011 alone, more
than twelve thousand civilians, including children, faced unfair military
trials that failed to provide the basic due process rights of civilian courts—that
is more than the number of military trials of civilians during Mubarak’s entire
thirty-year rule.
Just
two weeks after Egypt’s newly elected parliament let the Emergency Law finally
expire at the end of May this year, the SCAF-appointed Ministry of Justice
decreed that members of the military police and intelligence services have the right to arrest civilians. This would
also give them jurisdiction to bring those civilians before a military court—effectively
reinstating key aspects of the Emergency Law. A court overturned the decree.
SCAF
took steps to expand its reach into government with a vague decree
resuscitating the National Defense Council, an institution from the past with
an undefined mandate. Eleven of its sixteen members would come from the
military and decisions would only be taken by absolute majority, theoretically
prolonging SCAF by another name. In June, right after dissolving parliament
following a court ruling, SCAF granted itself legislative powers and removed
the control of the military from presidential purview.
If
evidence was needed that military justice cannot be trusted to hold military
law enforcement officers accountable for abusing citizens, one only has to
recall the acquittal in April of a military officer who administered so-called “virginity
tests” on unmarried women detainees following their arrests at a demonstration.
When
mostly Christian demonstrators protested at the state television headquarters
in Maspero last October, a pair of armored cars drove into peaceful crowds
along Cairo’s Nile-side road, crushing, as autopsies later showed, at least ten
people to death.
Throughout
last year and into 2012, police and soldiers still habitually beat and tortured
peaceful demonstrators. As recently as May, soldiers beat detainees as they
dragged them from Tahrir Square and again in detention. Whips, sticks, and
boots are the favored tools although some detainees also receive electric
shocks. Soldiers have arrested medics and journalists as well.
The
SCAF interregnum also features assaults on free speech and the press, including
military trials of protesters and bloggers, numerous interrogations of
journalists, and the suspension of granting new satellite television licenses.
The
importance of human rights in Egypt’s power struggle should be clear: no
Egyptian constitution has protected citizen rights against a secretive and
unelected military operating as the real power in the state. A new constitution
should clearly and unequivocally defend all Egyptians from arbitrary arrest,
torture, indefinite detention, and a host of other long-standing abuses. And
laws should punish such wrongdoing.
SCAF has
shown a single-minded approach to keeping power while tossing civil liberties
aside. Yet, the divided groups that overthrew Mubarak—Islamic and secular,
left, right and center—have never set out their notions of the immutable rights
of Egyptians.
The elected
president, Mohammed Morsi, ought to be leading the way in this. It is not
enough to tell Egyptians he loves them all, as he did in his unofficial
inaugural address in Tahrir Square on June 29. Morsi has defied SCAF by trying
to reinstate parliament but he should now apply equal energy to insuring that
any future government respects human rights.
In all dealings with SCAF, its post-uprising record
should be kept firmly in mind. And Egyptians of all political stripes should
come together to support the rights of free expression, assembly, and
independent, fair and open justice.
Daniel Williams
is a senior researcher in the Emergencies Division of Human Rights Watch. He
was previously a foreign correspondent for the Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and
Bloomberg News.