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“I was caught by five or six men and thrown on the street. They took two wooden chairs and broke them on me while I lay on the ground. I was lying on my right side. They said, “Turn him over on the other side.” I decided this was going to last too long so I pretended to lose consciousness, but when they picked me up by my arms and legs the pain from the fracture caused me to scream, so they saw I was not unconscious and started beating me again with the chair legs.¹

Human Rights Watch interview, Cairo, March 29, 2003

[T]wo [security officials] took me away again, this time to a room on an upper floor and started beating me again. They were calling me all kinds of obscene names. They pressed a truncheon on my anus—I had my clothes on, but the sexual threat was clear. They said they would get me to stop my political activities. This beating concentrated on my back, near the base of my spine and the backs of my legs. They broke the skin on the back of my right thigh.

Human Rights Watch interview, Cairo, March 29, 2003

I. Summary

This report documents serious human rights violations by Egyptian security officials during and following large demonstrations in Cairo on March 20 and 21, 2003 against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.  These violations included: excessive use of force in disbursing demonstrators and bystanders on March 21 in violation of the right to freedom of assembly; arbitrary arrest and detention, including of children; beatings and mistreatment of persons in detention, in some cases amounting to torture; and failure to provide medical care to seriously injured detainees.

On Thursday, March 20, following the start of United States military action against Iraq the night before, more than ten thousand demonstrators took over Cairo’s al-Tahrir (Liberation) Square. The demonstration, which lasted approximately twelve hours, took place without major violent incidents. The next day, Friday, uniformed riot police and plainclothes men armed with pipes and clubs assaulted persons trying to converge again on al-Tahrir Square, as well as bystanders in the area, beating and injuring many. A similar assault occurred later that day outside the Egyptian Bar Association building, about ten blocks from al-Tahrir Square. Some of those who were beaten appear to have been targeted in reprisal for their participation in earlier demonstrations. The effective prohibition of public assembly and the use of excessive force against demonstrators and bystanders were in violation of international human rights standards and Egyptian law.

The authorities arrested approximately 800 persons on March 21, at least sixty-one of whom were ordered held for further investigation and charged with destroying public property, inciting unrest, and failing to disperse when ordered to do so. Many were held at sites not recognized in Egyptian law as legal places of detention, including the headquarters of the State Security Investigations (SSI). Almost all of those charged were ordered released on March 30, but at this writing they still face possible criminal prosecution. Other persons, including two members of parliament, were arrested over the following several days for their alleged roles in organizing or participating in the demonstrations. Most of these detentions appear to have been based on the detainees’ known or alleged affiliations with organizations critical of government policies rather than on evidence supporting the criminal charges eventually brought against them.  Arrests carried out in the days following the demonstrations were without judicial warrants, in violation of Egyptian law.

Some of those held and charged said that they were beaten while in custody, in some cases to the point of torture, and denied medical attention for injuries they sustained. Further arrests relating to the demonstrations were also made in early and mid-April 2003. Most of those persons were held for days or weeks, and in some cases longer, before being released without charge. Some of those arrested in April also have made credible allegations that they were tortured or otherwise mistreated while in detention in violation of Egypt’s obligations under law.

At least six children were arrested on March 21, 2003 and detained with unrelated adults in conditions of severe overcrowding and at risk of abuse, in violation of international standards. One boy of sixteen said that he and other children had been subjected to torture.

Human Rights Watch requested meetings in early April 2003 with Egyptian officials, including Minister of Interior Habib al-`Adli and Prosecutor General Maher `Abd al-Wahed to discuss its concerns but received no response to the requests. Human Rights Watch also received no response to its earlier letters of March 25, 2003, to Interior Minister al-`Adli and Prosecutor General `Abd al-Wahed expressing concern about reports of torture, ill-treatment, and denial of medical care to those in detention. On March 29, 2003, Nabil Osman, the director of Egypt’s State Information Service, dismissed allegations of torture made public by Human Rights Watch as “hearsay…mere claims made to further the interests of anti-government political factions.”²

Human Rights Watch met with Egypt’s ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, on April 4, 2003. Ambassador Fahmy told Human Rights Watch that the government responds positively to most requests to hold demonstrations. He indicated that in the prevailing political climate there would be no independent inquiry into the behavior of the security forces on March 20-21. He said that he did not find allegations of deliberate torture by state officials to be credible, and that complaints of torture should be directed to the omsbudsman in the Office of the Prosecutor General. Such complaints were made by various arrested persons when they were interrogated by the Office of the Prosecutor General prior to their release, or were filed immediately following their release, in late March and early April; as of October 27, 2003, they were still reportedly under consideration at the highest level of the Prosecutor General’s office. Ambassador Fahmy suggested that the most constructive response to the confrontations of March and April would be better training for security forces dealing with demonstrations.   Egyptian police and security forces would indeed benefit from professional training, in particular with reference to the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the U.N. Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms. Human Rights Watch believes that the government also has an obligation under international law to conduct a prompt, impartial inquiry into serious allegations of excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees in connection with the antiwar demonstrations in March and April 2003.