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H. RightsReports

Egyptian Women 6 Years after Sisi’s Access to Power

Introduction

Since the military coup of July 3, 2013, violations against women in Egypt have unprecedentedly increased. In the past six years, dozens of women have been killed by police forces during sit-ins and protests, and by army forces during ongoing military operations in North Sinai.

In this report, we have identified multiple types of extrajudicial killings in terms of criminal intent (deliberate and indiscriminate) and in terms of how victims were extrajudicially killed (five forms).

Dozens of women have been subjected to enforced disappearance by the Interior Ministry’s national security apparatus for various reasons, including expression of opinion, human rights work, and community activity; and others who were arrested and disappeared while they were looking for their forcibly disappeared beloved ones and relatives.

The authorities also continued its policy of arresting and detaining hundreds of women arbitrarily and systematically after participation in peaceful gatherings or expressing their opinion and merely opposing the regime. Although some of these women have been released, hundreds others were referred to military courts and terror courts (extraordinary chambers).

The attack on high school first-grade female students (May 21, 2019) during their protests in front of the Ministry of Education headquarters, indicates clearly that the Egyptian authorities are determined to proceed with its policy of practice of repression against women and even minors. At that time, a police Maj. Gen. threatened to arrest the young girls and treat them as criminals and defendants in terrorism cases.

The security services (National Security, Military Intelligence, and General Intelligence) have practiced torture against women in different forms with unprecedented cruelty, especially the national security apparatus whose headquarters is considered the most dangerous torture centers in Egypt.

In the absence of minimum fair trial standards, hundreds of women were referred to military and extraordinary courts, relying solely on national security investigations and victim confessions that are extracted under torture; and judges handed down sentences of up to 25-year imprisonment to them relying on these investigations.

The authorities have also imposed economic sanctions on a number of women directly through seizure and confiscation of their funds; and in 2018 the Sisi regime passed Law 22 in April 2018 regulating the seizure of terrorist assets. This law made it legal for the state to transfer assets to the treasury, rather than simply freezing and managing assets, as it had done before. (On September 11, 2018, Egypt’s Committee for Inventory, Seizure, and Management of Terrorist Funds announced that it had seized assets belonging to 1,589 Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters or alleged sympathizers, as well as 118 companies, 1,133 NGOs, 104 schools, 69 hospitals, and 33 websites and TV channels with alleged ties to MB.)

We have also observed a consistent pattern of seizure of cash, jewelry, electronic devices and mobiles during storming houses to arrest women. Also, it has become customary for prison personnel to receive funds from women during visits to their beloved ones to allow the entry of stuff arbitrarily prohibited by the prison administration.

Instead of seeking to improve the human rights situation in Egypt, the authorities have been legitimizing their abuses by passing legislation and adopting policies of fabrication of charges against opinion leaders, in order to make international public opinion believe that there is no political prisoners in the country, and that all detainees are accused in criminal cases. In fact, this form of detention is much more serious than detentions that had been carried out before (particularly under Mubarak) upon a decision of the Minister of Interior, without fabricating charges against opponents or issuing unfair sentences as it is going on under Sisi.

On November 24, 2013, the Official Gazette published Law 107 of 2013 that restricts peaceful political demonstrations in violation of international standards. The law effectively grants security officials discretion to ban any protest on very vague grounds, allows police officers to forcibly disperse any protest if even a single protester throws a stone, and sets heavy prison sentences for vague offenses such as attempting to “influence the course of justice.”

In October 2014, Sisi issued Law 136 of 2014 which granted the military the authority to protect public and state facilities. Military courts were granted jurisdiction over any alleged crimes occurring on public land, including electric towers and stations, gas pipelines, roads, bridges, and other undefined public facilities.

In 2015, Law No. 8 of 2015, on terrorist entities, was passed, which unleashed the authorities in accusing anyone of terrorism. The law’s reliance on a broadly worded definition of terrorism raises serious questions on the vast discretion given to authorities throughout the designation process and the ways in which that process can be manipulated and subjected to politicization. The law authorizes “competent state bodies”—a term that is left undefined by the law—to dissolve the alleged ‘terrorist’ entity, bring to a halt its operations, close its buildings, ban its meetings and membership, stop its financial activities, freeze its property and assets, and temporarily deprive the individual or entity of their political rights.

On August 16, 2015, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ratified Law No. 94 of 2015, known as the “Law on Combating Terrorism”. The law, which was published in the official gazette on the same day it was ratified, imposes unprecedented restrictions on the freedom of speech in violation of the constitution. It gives authorities the ability to apply a broad definition of terrorism in order to arrest individuals who write statements, reports, and articles in newspapers criticizing the performance of the regime and charge them with promoting terrorism.

In early 2019, Sisi said in an interview with the U.S. CBS television network that there were no political prisoners in Egypt, based on his regime’s misinformation procedures of fabricating legal cases against political detainees.

On July 3, 2018, members of the Egyptian House of Representatives (parliament) approved the articles of the “Law on Treatment of Some Senior Armed Forces Commanders” to immunize military commanders and senior officers against any legal accountability. The law states that: “No investigation or judicial action may be initiated against any of the parties to the provisions of this Law for any act committed during the period of suspension of the Constitution until the date of the commencement of the work of the Council of Representatives, during the performance of their positions or because of them, except with the permission of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.”

In addition, to dozens of laws and procedures were made for legalization of the regime’s crimes, harassment and silencing of voices, including the NGO Law No. 70 of 2017, which was ratified by Sisi on May 29, 2017. The law significantly constrains the activities of both domestic and foreign NGOs under the pretense of national security, and it empowers authorities with expansive monitoring authority and broad discretion to regulate and dissolve NGOs.

The latest of these moves were the constitutional amendments that allow Sisi to remain in power until 2030.

However, the National Council for Women in Egypt is still far from adopting any positive role or any activity towards investigating the violations committed by the regime against women, that include the following:

First: Extrajudicial Killing

monitoring extrajudicial killings in Egypt during the period following the events of the July 3 military coup, 2013, we observed that the Egyptian army and police forces carried out extrajudicial killings in various forms, including:

1- In terms of the criminal intent:

The army and police forces extrajudicially executed 21 Egyptian women by deliberately targeting and sniping them in Rabaa Square, which was described by some human rights organizations as the largest mass killing of peaceful protesters in modern history. Another kind of killing is the indiscriminate shooting that resulted in killing a greater number of women.

2- In terms of how victims are extrajudicially killed:

Five forms of extrajudicial killings have been monitored as follows:

a- During participation in peaceful sit-ins,

b- During participation in peaceful protests,

c- Targeting journalists while doing their job (reporting demonstrations),

d- Targeting passers-by on roads, markets and public transport stations,

e- Killing women by shelling citizens’ houses.

These forms of killing ranged from executions during demonstrations and sit-ins across the country to indiscriminate targeting or collective punishment to civilians, as in North Sinai, where 109 women were killed, including 33 children, between January 2015 and June 2019.

These incidents across Egypt resulted in the murder of at least 312 women since July 2013 until June 2019, according to the We Record human rights website. Also, the Wiki Revolution documented the killing of 72 Egyptian women during the period from early July 2013 to 31 January 2014.

However, instead of opening a serious investigation into these killings, the Egyptian authorities accused opponents of committing them, as happened in the killing of journalist Mayada Ashraf and human rights activist Shaimaa Sabbagh to one of the participants in the demonstration.

Circumstances of extrajudicial killings against women in Egypt:

A- During participation in peaceful sit-ins (by the army and police forces)

Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo governorate witnessed the largest mass killing in modern Egypt’s history, targeting army and police forces with live bullets and killing hundreds of people, including 21 women.

B- During participation in peaceful protests (by the police forces)

Shaimaa Sabbagh, a human rights activist and member of the Popular Socialist Alliance, was deliberately killed by a rubber bullet after the central security officer, Yassin Mohamed Hatem, shot her from a distance of approximately 8 meters while participating in a demonstration in Tahrir Square. The case No. 805 of 2015 Felonies of Kasr El-Nil was exposed to a large manipulation of the police and the prosecution in order to cover up the killer officer, where he was only charged with (beating to death) to get a reduced sentence, with disregard of a video showing the officer firing at the victim. It is noteworthy that the prosecution attempted to charge a member of the Popular Socialist Alliance, who was walking next to the victim together with protesters, of killing Sabbagh.

C- Targeting journalists while doing their job (by the police forces)

Journalist Habiba Ahmed Abdel Aziz was deliberately targeted and killed by a sniper on 14 August 2013 during Rabaa al-Adawiya Square massacre while she was trying to cover the peaceful sit-in of supporters of late President Mohamed Morsi. While the victim was speaking to her mother on mobile she told her that an officer stationed on a building overlooking Rabaa Square with a sniper weapon pointed at her with the sign of slaughter – by crossing his hand on his neck – threatening to kill her; a few moments later, Habiba was shot dead by the same sniper officer during the same phone call with her mother.

Journalist Mayada Ashraf was also killed by a discriminate bullet on March 28, 2014 in Cairo’s Ain Shams region while covering demonstrations in support of President Mohamed Morsi. Moreover, the authorities used the incident to take revenge on demonstrators and fabricate charges against them.

D- Targeting passers-by on roads, markets and public transport stops (by the army forces)

On February 26, 2015, a five-year-old girl, Ikhlas, was killed by an indiscriminate bullet in the head by the forces of Al-Masora Checkpoint in North Sinai.

On July 1, 2015, Shaimaa N., a 15-year-old girl, was killed while walking in the street when the army officers opened fire discriminately on people in al-Shallaq area of ​​Sheikh Zuweid.

On April 7, 2016, Ms. Tamam Odeh Ghanem, 65, was killed by two bullets in the head and the chest fired discriminately by a military checkpoint in Abu Tawila area, south of Sheikh Zuweid; and her body was taken to El Arish Central Hospital.

E- Killing women by shelling their homes (by the army forces)

Through our daily monitoring of the human rights situation in the Sinai Peninsula from 2015 to mid-2019, we have noticed that the army forces do not take the necessary measures to protect civilians from the damage caused by shelling residential neighborhoods, as targeting residential neighborhoods takes place without warning residents or giving them enough time to move away from these targeted areas. The sudden targeting and shelling of residential neighborhoods is a systematic behavior of the Egyptian armed forces in Sinai; and therefore it can be said that victims of these operations have been deliberately killed, taking into account that the army forces are certain that there would be casualties before the carrying out the attack.

In April 2015, forces of a military checkpoint in the village of Al-Dahir, Sheikh Zuweid, committed a horrific massacre, targeting the home of Faleh al-Hubeidi, with an artillery shell that killed 11 members of the family, all women and children.

On October 21, 2016, Ms. Khadra Selim Salem Darwish, 75, was killed when a shell hit her home in Bala’a village, west of Rafah, and Asmaa Khaled Zuweid, 5, was injured by shrapnel as army forces heavily shelled the village in preparation for storming it.

On January 15, 2016, Ms. Eman Mosaad Sabah, 25, and Ms. Heba Aktifan Brik, 26, and her two children, Mayouf Yousef Mayouf, 3, and Walid Yousef Mayouf, 6 months, were killed after the army forces’ shelling of al-Joura village, Sheikh Zuweid.

On May, 18, 2016, 35-year-old Hamda Zarei Salma was killed along with five of her children, including Sabah Salem Salma, 14, and infant Walaa Salem Salma, 2, after a warplane targeted their residence (shelter tent) in al-Zawara’a area, south of Sheikh Zuweid city, after being forcibly evicted from their home.

On March 20, 2017, a drone, believed to be affiliated to the Israeli Air Force, bombed the residential area in ​​the Nakhl Center, central Sinai, without warning residents, which led to killing 3 children, including two sisters, Mariam Mohamed Salama al-Aqra ‘, 3, and Sumayah Mohamed Salama Al Aqra’, 2, in addition to their father Mohamed Salama Al-Aqra’, 56.

On January 30, 2017, the Second Army carried out another massacre by shelling two houses in the industrial area south of El-Arish city, killing Ms. Huda Ali Salma 40, and the child Mariam Ali Gomaa, 14, and injuring others whose names were not identified.

On November 25, 2017, a drone bombed the house of Sallam Ali Sallam, in the Al-Raysan area of ​​Arab Blei in Al-Hassana Center, central Sinai, completely destroying the house and killing 3 members of the family, including Neamat Sallam Ali Sallam, 18, and her sister-in-law. Ms. Huda Salman Ali, 27; and 4 people were injured, including the 4-year-old Aliaa Ziad Sallam.

3- Troops involved in killings

Through the analysis of the various types of killings and images, we have been able to identify the forces involved in these killings:

The Rabaa massacre was carried out by a joint force of the army (military police), the Republican Guard and military elements from various branches on the one hand, and the police represented in the national security apparatus, the central security, the special forces and the public security forces. The massacre was carried out based on a mock order issued by the Prosecutor-General, under the supervision and management of the military intelligence and the then Minister of Defense Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

The army, particularly the second and third field armies and air forces, are responsible for the killing of women and children resulting from aerial and artillery shelling (in Sinai).

The Ministry of Interior and its executing agents are responsible for the killings of journalist Mayada Ashraf and activist Shaimaa Sabbagh.

The fixed security and military forces stationed in checkpoints, military units, headquarters of the battalions, police stations, and security points on the one hand; and mobile forces represented in military and security forces undertaking campaigns on residential neighborhoods, public places and markets on the other – also participate in the killings through indiscriminate shooting.

4- Weapons and equipment used in the killings

a- In the killings that took place in peaceful sit-ins, including the Rabaa sit-in massacre, a joint army and police force used the following weapons and vehicles:

– Fahd-240 police armored vehicles (locally made),

– Fahd-30/280 military armored vehicles (locally made),

– YPR-765 pri.50 armored personnel carriers (jointly manufactured by the U.S., Belgium and the Netherlands),

– Caterpillar-9 bulldozers that were used in the demolition of tents and running over bodies,

– Sniper rifles,

– Machine guns of the AK-56 and AK-36 type,

– Shotguns used by police forces against demonstrators from deadly distances,

– Police helicopters, and

– Army helicopters of the Russian Mi-type.

b- In the killings of journalists while doing their job (by the police forces), the following weapons and vehicles were used:

– Machine guns of the AK-56 and AK-36 type

– Shotguns

c- In the killings by indiscriminately shooting at markets, public places and neighborhoods, the following weapons and vehicles were used:

– AK-56 and AK-36 rifles

– Machine guns firing anti-armor bullets

d- In the killings by aerial bombardment and artillery shelling, the following weapons were used:

– M60 A3 tanks

– Mortars of different caliber

– Drones (both Egyptian and Israeli)

– US-made F16 aircraft

– US-made AH-64 Apache attack helicopters

– French-made Rafale aircraft, used with the launch of the comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018

– Internationally prohibited US-made CBU-87/B and BLU-97/B  cluster bombs, and CBU-100 Egyptian-made cluster bombs, also known as MK-20 ROCKEYE II, fired by the F-16s, as well as the US-made MK-118 cluster bombs that were used by the Egyptian armed forces to bomb sites in Sinai, which was revealed through a video released by the Egyptian military spokesman showing unexploded cluster bombs (MK-118).

It is noteworthy that cluster bombs are prohibited according to the Convention on Cluster Munitions which prohibits all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions – the convention came into force on August 1, 2010, after 108 countries, including Egypt, had signed it.

Consequently, the Egyptian authorities, represented by the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior and related agencies and sectors, particularly the national security apparatus, that were involved in the killings, deliberately ignored Article 59 of the Egyptian Constitution, which states that: “Every person has the right to a secure life. The state shall provide security and reassurance for citizens, and all those residing within its territory.”

In terms of international legislation, these acts violate:

– Article 6/1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that: “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

– Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

– Article 4 of the African Charter on Human Rights, which also stipulates that “Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman of degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited.”

Second: Enforced Disappearance

The Egyptian authorities have maintained practice of enforced disappearance against women. At least 84 cases of enforced disappearance of women have been monitored between September 2018 and July 15, 2019, 15 of whom are still under enforced disappearance. The statistics published by the We Record team show that 69 Egyptian women have appeared in detention facilities or during interrogation by the prosecution.

The targeting of Egyptian women has not been limited to those affiliated with a certain intellectual stream or a specific political group, as repression included women belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, women belonging to liberal and secular intellectual currents, and others who did not have any political or intellectual affiliation (i.e. those that interacted with media campaigns such as the “Be assured, you are not alone” campaign). Also, some human rights activists have been forcibly disappeared for their activity, including lawyer Huda Abdel Moneim, a former member of the National Council for Human Rights.

Women who had been subjected to enforced disappearance faced extremely harsh and dangerous conditions and were denied the protection of the law by the authorities that completely denied their detention. On the other hand, the families of the disappeared experience periods of great anxiety due to lack of information on the whereabouts of their loved ones and the reasons for their arrest and exposition to physical and psychological torture and humiliation at the hands of officers of the national security apparatus.

On November 1, 2018, security forces stormed the house of Marwa Ahmed Madbouly, late at night, without a prosecution warrant, terrified the victim and her family, smashed the contents of the house, destroyed its electronic devices and tore up all her clothes.

The forces also destroyed the furniture prepared for her new flat after marriage, as the family was preparing to transfer their daughter’s furniture to her marital home, taking into account that her wedding day was scheduled for November 8, 2018.  The troops also seized a large amount of money that Marwa was intending to use for buying the rest of her flat furniture.

She was then taken to an unknown destination and subjected to enforced disappearance for nearly three weeks, during which her lawyer and relatives were unable to find out her whereabouts or know about the reasons behind her detention. She later appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which ordered her imprisonment in al-Qanater prison and she has been denied the right to visits so far!

On April 22, 2019, security forces arrested journalist Abeer Hisham Mohamed El-Safty as they passed by a security checkpoint in Alexandria Governorate. After security forces tried to force her to vote on constitutional amendments, she was taken to an unknown destination, while her family did not know her whereabouts or the reasons behind her detention. Almost a week after, on April 28, 2019, she appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution and interrogated on Case No. 674 of 2019 – state security.

On March 1, 2019, security forces arrested political activist Rasha Abdel Rahman from Ramses Square and took her to an undisclosed place, where she was held for 16 days, during which no one was able to check on her or even know anything regarding her whereabouts.

She later appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution on March 17, 2019, after she was included in Case No. 488 of 2019 – supreme state security.

On April 25, 2018, security forces arrested young journalist Shorouk Amjad El-Sayed in front of the Egyptian Press Syndicate while returning from work in downtown Cairo, describing her first night at the national security headquarters as the worst night in her life. There, she was subjected to a number of violations, including beating, abuse, insults, threats of rape, verbal and physical harassment, in addition to forcing her to hear the voices of other victims, who were severely tortured overnight. She was then taken to the Supreme State Security Prosecution for interrogation in Case No. 441 of 2018.

The motives of the Egyptian authorities for this serious type of abuse, which deprives its victims of the protection of the law, is to release the hands of its elements to brutalize the victims, violate their bodies and lives in order to obtain information or extract a confession and punish the victim for his positions or work.

We have also observed in many cases of enforced disappearances of women that the authorities disclose the victim’s whereabouts as a result of human rights and media pressure from human rights activists on social media and satellite channels.

The crime of enforced disappearance, which is described in Article 5 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as a crime against humanity, is practiced against Egyptian women without deterring or holding accountable to its practitioners, and in its first article the Convention prohibits exposing any person to enforced disappearance under any circumstances.

Although the Egyptian Constitution does not explicitly provide for enforced disappearance, article 54 of the Constitution stipulates that personal liberty is a natural right and is inviolable. Except in the case of flagrante delicto, no one may be arrested, searched, imprisoned, or restricted in any way except By virtue of a reasoned judicial order, the investigation shall be promptly notified to any person whose liberty has been registered for such reasons, shall be informed in writing. He shall be able to communicate immediately with his relatives and counsel, and shall be submitted to the investigating authority within 24 hours from the time of restriction of his liberty. If he does not have a lawyer, he shall be assigned a lawyer, with the necessary assistance to persons with disabilities, in accordance with established procedures Legally. Any person whose freedom shall be restricted, and others, shall have the right to appeal to the judiciary against such a measure, and shall be adjudicated within a week of that procedure, otherwise he shall be released immediately. The law shall regulate pretrial detention, its duration, reasons, and cases of entitlement to compensation, which the State is obliged to perform for pretrial detention, or for the execution of a sentence which has been issued to abolish the sentence. In all cases, the accused may not be prosecuted for crimes in which he may be imprisoned except in the presence of a lawyer or delegate.

Third: Physical and psychological torture and sexual harassment

Torture against Egyptian women, both psychological and physical, is considered one of the most systematic violations in practice, serious in terms of the impact on the integrity of the human body and spirit. On a psychological and organic level, it may amount to a permanent disability with a chronic injury or illness.

Egyptian women became victims of torture inside the national security and other places of detention in a serious violation of the status and sanctity of Egyptian women granted to them by the Egyptian society before the Constitution stipulated this status and the specificity of dealing with them.The National Security and the Criminal Investigations found their bodies and souls and practiced the worst forms of torture.

According to our observation, there are at least 2761 women who have been subjected to physical and psychological torture during their experience of arbitrary detention, or in the places where they were placed, and at all stages of the proceedings (arrest, prosecution, trial, imprisonment).

The headquarters of the National Security (Internal Intelligence Service) are the most practiced places for physical and psychological torture in all its forms and forms. Brutally.

The types of torture in terms of tools, effects and pain resulting from them can include forms of ill-treatment:

a. Physical torture: physical assault on the body of the victim beaten with hands and feet and wooden and iron tools, solid and flexible and electrocution and restraint and put a blindfold on the eye, and torture is usually done against women in the presence of a doctor in order to address the effects of torture immediately and to see the victim’s victim and the extent of the victim Carrying her body or not, the torture session will continue or stop, provided that torture sessions will be completed at later dates!

B. Psychological torture: By placing the victim under extremely difficult living conditions, it is impossible to exert psychological pressure on her and threaten her with death, rape and abuse of her family.

We listened to a number of women who were tortured in both parts of the Egyptian detention facilities, where the victim “WL” () said that the officer pulled me off the abaya while I was unconscious and threatened me if he confessed to enter the ranks of soldiers. A little bit closer to me as if he was going to get him, and at the end of my disappearance, I got health problems as a result of the psychological pressure that I was in.

The victim also told me that after they took me to the state security headquarters Ghmouni and threatened me that they would work on a party and photograph me naked and sold the pictures to my children. Electrify me.

The victim, CS, also said that she was tortured during her period of enforced disappearance (lasted several months) and placed in a National Security headquarters, where they beat her with beatings, electricity and sexual harassment to force her to make confessions and crimes she did not commit, and present them to the prosecution without the presence of Lawyer, and then not to allow her lawyer, if present, to see the papers of the case and ignore their requests, as well as the abuse and medical negligence when the deterioration of her health, especially her mental state.

The victim said na. (V) Since her arrest until her presentation to the prosecution she was lying on the floor in a room unfit for human life blindfolded and handcuffed, and was forcibly hidden for more than three months, during which national security officers assaulted her physically and morally, where she was beaten and kicked , And insulting the ugliest words.

On March 3, 2018, eyewitnesses from El-Arish reported that more than seven of the 15 women detained were taken to El Arish First Police Station and that they heard women screaming from inside the police stationas a result of torture, beatings and electrocution.

It is also noteworthy that the detainees were subjected to ill-treatment amounting to psychological torture. A 20-year-old girl who was subjected to enforced disappearance for 4 months inside the National Security headquarters in Khanka did not see the sun once during the period of enforced disappearance and was not allowed to move outside the room except during the investigation. She is brought to the interrogation room blindfolded and bound, subjected to health defects with which she has not received proper health care and medical intervention has been limited to taking analgesics only.

They have also been subjected to ill-treatment amounting to physical torture through sexual harassment by security agents in detention facilities where they are placed in contact with sensitive areas and their invisible organs and forcibly subjected to vaginal examination – vaginal examination, and virginity detection on the pretext of whether the detainee is a virgin or not Classification in deposited cells dedicated to each category!

In view of these facts, we find that the state agencies responsible for law enforcement and the protection of citizens from any violation or abuse of their right, encourage its members to torture and harm its citizens with impunity or punishment, but to the point of upgrading officers known for torture and brutality in dealing with citizens.

Torture is a criminal offense under article 52 of the Constitution, and the human body and dignity are protected under article 60, paragraph 1, of the Constitution, which states that the human body is inviolable, assaulted, mutilated, or represented by a crime punishable by law, as well as articles 4.5 of The African Charter on Human Rights, article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention against Torture, but the Egyptian authorities are not interested in all these provisions supposed to be committed to them, and continue in the policy of brutality and the desecration of the bodies of women.

Fourth: Arbitrary detention

Arbitrary detention is one of the most widespread and systematic violations in Egypt, which began in a systematic and noticeable manner following the events of 3 July 2013, in an attempt by the PA to codify arrests and portray them as arrests of people who committed crimes, but in fact arbitrary arrests of opinion holders after which charges were fabricated to justify Continue to be placed in detention facilities and prisons.

The executive branch, represented by the National Security and Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Interior and forces of the Ministry of Defense, use arbitrary detention against women, where over the past six years at least 2761 women have been arbitrarily detained, 121 of whom are still in detention.

The prosecution’s submission to the instructions of the executive branch, which also controls the judiciary, helped to spread the abuse and systematic practice against Egyptian women. There were many reasons for the detention of women in Egypt between those belonging to an intellectual or political opposition, or expressed their opinion without belonging to an intellectual or political movement, or as a result of human rights and societal activity, and others who paid the price of searching and defending their relatives who were forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained by arrest and subjected to the most heinous violations.

On May 6, 2018, security forces inside Wadi al-Natroun Prison arrested Shaimaa Muhammad Idris while visiting her husband, Muhammad al-Amri, who was sentenced to life in a political case. He was brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution the following day and interrogated in Case No. 570 of 2018, confining a high state security.

On March 7, 2018, security forces arrested two sister women, one 57-year-old and the other 54, several days after their homes were demolished in El-Arish.

On November 1, 2018, at approximately 1:30 am, the house of the lawyer and former member of the Egyptian Human Rights Council, Hoda Abdel Moneim, was raided and after the family was terrorized and the contents of the house were destroyed, she was blindfolded to her mother’s house where they searched and tampered with its contents. They put the victim under tight security in a police car, and returned to the victim’s house again, resuming searches and destroying the contents of the house (for two and a half hours) while the victim remained blindfolded inside the police car!

All questions of the victim were rejected by security officers and were related to the place or entity responsible for the arrest and the prosecution’s authorization to search and arrest. They also refused to take her medications or personal belongings with her.

She was subjected to enforced disappearance for nearly three weeks, during which her family could not reassure her, communicate with her, or even know where she was being held.

During her presentation to the Supreme State Security Prosecution on November 21, 2018, she appeared under Case No. 1552 of 2018 to restrict the security of his state, in which she was included.

Also on March 16, 2019, security forces arrested the arrest of student Alaa El Sayed Ali, from the campus while attending the school day in her college, where she is a student at the Faculty of Arts, Zagazig University, and then took the forces to an unknown destination and subjected to enforced disappearance for almost 37 days, She will then appear before the State Security Prosecution on 23 April 2019.

On March 24, 2019, at around 6 p.m., security forces stormed the house of Aya Mohammed Hamed Mohamed. After intimidating family members, tampering and destroying its contents and seizing mobile phones, electronic devices and documents (including his newspaper license), they took Aya and her father, Mohamed Hamed, the chairman of the council. The administration of Al-Minya newspaper, to an unknown destination, and then appeared during their presentation to the Supreme State Security Prosecution on March 26, 2019, after they were included in case No. 533 of 2019 inventory of state security, in connection with the rape of a student at Al-Azhar University, and on charges of publishing false news and use Social networking sites for the purpose of disrupting Public security and peace).

On May 21, 2019, police forces brutally and degradingly assaulted first-grade female students in front of the Ministry of Education building for organizing a protest demanding the abolition of education in tablets. Science.

A video and photo showed a security element attacking a student, touching her in full from the back and then pushing her body towards a fence to become the child between him and the fence.

Other pictures showed that a security element tracked down another student and tried to attract her from her hair, and another video showed a police brigade threatening students with the fate of terrorists and criminals if they did not end this pause and said to them: “ No one will allow the stops, ” In God, five minutes and Hijili instructions to arrest you ,,, and Htodoa yourself in the share ,,, Htodoa yourself and your people in misfortune ,, You are free and God Htngroa and Htamloa uniforms terrorists and accused)!

He has already carried out his threat of serious assaults on female students, without respecting them as children, by stalking, arresting and verbally and physically assaulting them. Consequently, arbitrary detention is practiced in the absence of a government-sponsored constitution and law. Egyptian women are punished for offenses they have committed, and their bodies violate the law and the constitution by detaining them and placing them in their premises.

For example, article 54, paragraph 1, of the Egyptian Constitution stipulates that personal liberty is a natural right and is inviolable. Except in the case of flagrante delicto, no one may be arrested, searched, imprisoned, or restricted in any way except by reasoned judicial order. Investigation.

Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that a person may not be arrested or imprisoned except by order of the legally competent authorities, and shall be treated in a manner that preserves human dignity and may not be harmed physically or morally.

Article 280 of the Penal Code stipulates that any person arrested, imprisoned or detained without the order of a competent ruler, and in cases other than those authorized by law and regulations for the arrest of suspects, shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand Egyptian pounds.

Fifth: Rights of Litigation and Fair Trial

The rights of litigation were no better than the rest of the rights lost in Egypt, a military judiciary extended by the authorities, and extraordinary terror courts formed to retaliate against opponents of the authority.These courts and departments issued harsh and unfair judgments that failed to observe the minimum standards of fair trials and the law.

On February 2, 2015, the Giza Criminal Court (Circuit 5 Terrorism), headed by Chancellor Nagy Shehata, sentenced the 57-year-old Egyptian citizen Samia Shanan to death. The Court of Cassation overturned the verdict and retried the Cairo Criminal Circuit (Circuit 11 Terror) presided over by the Chancellor. For the same reasons rejected by the Court of Cassation, the court sentenced her to 25 years’ imprisonment under procedures that did not guarantee her any fair trial guarantees.

The Court of Cassation upheld the Cairo felony verdict, although it did not differ in terms of awar and serious legal irregularities from the Giza felony verdict, which was overturned by the Court of Cassation earlier, to serve her sentence in difficult health and psychological conditions.The victim is close to sixty and subjected to many psychological and sometimes physical abuse The victim was arrested on September 19, 2013, from her home in Nahia village of Kerdasa city, after he broke into it and broke its contents and assaulted her with libel and slander, in addition to the arrest of two of her sons.

The arrest came against the background of her participation in the demonstrations in support of Dr. Mohamed Morsi and the rejection of the coup, to be included in the case of the massacre of the police department of Kerdasa, and subjected to the most horrific forms of torture, and her children were tortured before her, to force her under torture to confess to crimes she did not commit.

In December 2017, the military court referred citizenship papers, Sarah Abdullah al-Sawy, a doctor at the Badrasheen General Hospital, to the mufti for legal opinion in preparation for her death sentence, but as a result of human rights pressure the military judge sentenced her to 25 years in prison instead of the death penalty in a known case. Media bombing of the Niger Embassy.

The military court is not competent to hear cases of civilians, but the Egyptian authorities have expanded their jurisdiction to facilitate the control of their military members.

The court overlooked the facts of torture, beatings, electric shocks and threats of rape, which Sara was subjected to by national security agents, to force her to confess to the charges.

Sixth: Economic Violations

The Egyptian authorities have also practiced arbitrary economic violations against women for various reasons, none of which constitutes a crime or legal offense, for example, their belonging to the family of a politician (activists, leaders, opinion holders) stalked and placed in prison, or their political, human rights and solidarity work with families. Political Detainees in Egypt.

Egyptian women faced arbitrary economic sanctions in various forms, where the police forces systematic looting while storming the homes of citizens, since the events of July 3 until now, by stealing gold jewelry and electronic devices and liquid amounts of money, and the destruction of the contents of her family’s house, and faced the decisions of the reservation They also faced the most serious arbitrary economic sanctions by confiscating their property.

They were also expelled from their homes after being forcibly evicted and demolished in front of their eyes and left with their children homeless in the streets, as a kind of penalties introduced by the Ministries of Defense and Interior in dealing with wanted persons on the back of political activities, where the demolitions of houses appeared as punishment for wanted families in 2018, in the North Sinai.

The security forces barely stepped out of the houses they raided during extensive and massive arrests during 2013 and 2014.However, the housewives announced that the security forces had robbed gold jewelery and money from their homes and completely destroyed the contents of the house until the toilets were not spared from cracking and destruction.

The first organized looting in the cities and houses of those opposed to the coup and those who rejected the coup was in the city of Kerdasa in Giza Governorate, which was raided by joint army and police forces with military equipment and large numbers of troops and equipment with air cover.

Israeli forces raided hundreds of houses and beat, insulted, and libeled women inside their broken homes. We monitored and documented 17 incidents involving the assault on women and children, the seizure of money, gold jewelery, electronic devices and mobile phones. The six-storey building, each containing two apartments, destroyed the contents of seven apartments and seized the money and gold and electronic holdings inside them, as well as the house of Hajja Samia Shanan, the oldest political detainee and sentenced to a final sentence of 25 years.

During the campaign and the 90-day siege, we also monitored the firing and burning of families from five houses and prevented people from extinguishing fires, including the home of Professor E., Engineer AA and Dr. M. N “which devoured all their flames and the flames continued burning for long hours on 20 September 2013.

In Damietta governorate, security forces continued to follow the same policy of breaking into the houses of wanted persons against political issues. The house of Mohamed Adel Balboula in the city of Basarta in Damietta – physically liquidated by police forces – was burned three times and his wife Mariam was forcibly removed from the house. Every time the house was burned, it repaired the house after each incident at the hands of the police.

In North Sinai, on March 3, 2018, a joint army and police force in Al-Jarir neighborhood of Al-Arish city demolished four houses as a family member engaged in political activity against the authorities. The Jarir.

On March 7, 2018, joint army and police forces in the town of El-Arish in North Sinai Governorate demolished two houses illegally owned by two sister women, one of whom is 57 years old and the other is 54 years old!

On the other hand, on September 11, 2018, the authorities issued a new decree under Law 22 of 2018, regulating the procedures of custody, enumeration, management and disposal of funds of terrorist groups and terrorists, withholding funds and property of 1589 people, including at least 21 women, and 3 companies owned by women.

Conclusion

This report includes various forms of violations against women in Egypt, and from different social segments and political affiliations, and confirmed this by documenting various cases as a reference, and in the context of the statement of the catastrophic deterioration witnessed by Egypt in women’s rights, since the beginning of the rule of Abdel Fattah Sisi. It cannot be overlooked that this deterioration could not have been this way, except as a result of a security policy that uses all kinds of repression excessively under the auspices of international silence.

Stakeholders should build communication bases with all civil society organizations and activists involved in abuses against women, and intensify contacts with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and other organizations in multiple countries, creating different workspaces and pressures[1].


[1] The views expressed in this article are entirely those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of EIPSS.

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