- No Rules, No Limits
- Sexual assaults and fabrication of cases against
journalists and activists
- "Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain" (
http://www.hrinfo.org/en/reports/re2006/) -reterieved Sept 30,
2006.
-
- Introduction: Freedom of expression and political dispute
-
- No country in the world is void of political opposition,
human rights activists, and journalists resisting corruption.
Despite the intensity of the disagreement between these
institutions and state authorities, this is a healthy disagreement
indicating a process of political, social, or economic reform.
Freedom of expression and civil society mobility contribute to the
exposure of corruption, provide alternative solutions, and present
a better vision to curing crises.
-
- Of the most important indicators defining the level of
advancement and democracy of any state is how it deals with its
political opposition, the methods it administers in this dispute,
and the space available for freedom of opinion and expression.
-
- Accepting intense criticisms of political opposition is
not a grant given by this ruler or that government. Rather, it is
a natural right for people in any state given to journalists and
human rights activists who use this right for the interest of the
people. Here, all states and all people are equal, whether the
country is developing or developed, whether the state is a
democracy or an autocracy, and whether it is a secular government
or a religious one.
-
- In Egypt, as an example of a developing country, the
court has passed famous sentences confirming these rights. In one
case, the court ruled that it is agreed that in all constitutional
countries, contesting political opposition is generally acceptable
more than contesting a specific employee … The person who
nominates himself to represent the country is knowingly exposed to
having all his or her work a target for contestation and
criticism. Public discussions, regardless of how intense their
criticisms to actions and opinions of political parties, are in
the interest of the nation and that through these discussions can
develop a correct opinion pertaining the party it trusts and
supports.{1}
-
- In the United States, as an example of a developed
country, the Supreme Court said that for a public official to
prove that he or she is right in a defamation case, the official
has to prove with clear and convincing evidence that the false
statement defaming his or her reputation was published with the
newspaper's knowledge that it was false or to prove that the
newspaper has neglected in a careless manner the confirmation of
whether this statement was false or not.{2}
-
- These examples are to clarify that political criticism,
regardless of its intensity, should not be punished and should not
result in the desire for revenge.
-
- Arab rulers: Describing Gods, describing oppressors
- Most Arab rulers, with a few exceptions, have come to
power through illegitimate methods, such as, military coups, or
nominal elections by which inheritance of power is pursued. It is
also rare to find amongst those rulers those who carry the title
of "former president, former king or former prince … etc". The
rule has become, as a result, that whoever comes to power,
regardless of the method, seeks to maintain it for the rest of his
life. Many seek to hand down the rule to a family member.
-
- Most of these rulers, despite the fact that they have
been ruling for more than twenty years, use an iron fist against
those who dare to criticise their policies and practices. They
give a green light to security authorities to eliminate political
opposition, human rights activists, and journalists who only have
their pens and words to oppose these policies. A series of gross
violations with no rules or limits are thus committed, starting
with implicating opposition, activists, and journalists in cases,
detaining them and imprisoning them, and physically attacking
them, passing through coercive disappearance and ending with the
most degrading violations, such as framing criminal cases against
those opposition forces, attempting to defame their reputations
and spreading fear amongst citizens to prevent them from
participating in public affairs. This is what this brief paper
discusses.
-
- Police authorities: Fabricating cases, dirty operations
- Police authorities in most Arab countries have wide
experience in torture and fabricating political cases and physical
assaults as a result of training and the large budgets that these
authorities receive.
-
- However, because these methods are occasionally
insufficient in deterring some political and human rights
activists, and journalists, some authorities have started to
prepare policemen for what is known as "dirty operations". These
operations, despite being few, have wide and long term effects in
spreading fear amongst ordinary citizens and amongst some
activists who fear that their turn will come. Such operations
include fabricating criminal cases, committing sexual assaults,
and scandals aiming at defaming reputations and breaking the
spirits of the victims, in addition to spreading fear amongst
others, sending a clear message to whoever thinks to criticise or
oppose symbols of the regime and its authorities.
-
- Dirty operations: When, why, and how?
- The use of dirty operations is not arbitrary. Rather,
governments resort to them when they fail in using the accustomed
methods in the Arab World, such as detention, fabrication of
political cases, physical assault, and torture to limit the
activities performed by victims, whether journalists, human rights
activists, or political opposition whom governmental authorities
view as a threat revealing their practices.
-
- Accordingly, dirty operations are used against those
activists for a specific aim or to achieve several goals depending
on the case:
-
- Case I: The resort to physical assault or sexual
harassment against a specific activist aims at terrorising him or
her and breaking his or her spirit. This is usually done whilst
the activist is being arrested or after the activist has been
kidnapped.
-
- This kind of operation is used either as a punitive method or
to force the activist to stop a specific activity, such as
stopping the activist from continuing his or her writings on a
governmental symbol or official, or to stop the activist from
participating in political activities opposing the government.
-
- Case II: This entails the fabrication of criminal cases
or fabrication of immoral scandals against the activist without
actually physically assaulting him or her. The scandal or case is
then widely published, either through rumours or by using the
media. In addition to the goals mentioned in Case I, other goals
include spreading fear amongst the surrounding people that this
procedure might be used against them if they perform the same or
similar practices as the victim.
-
- Case III: This entails the integration of all of the
aforementioned-physical assault, fabrication of criminal cases, or
an attempt to scandalise the activist using the media and/or by
disseminating rumours.
-
- The press and playing with fire
- It is difficult to achieve the goals of "dirty
operations", especially in the second and third cases mentioned
above, without the cooperation or participation of some
journalists. Rarely, this cooperation takes place without the
journalist being aware of the circumstances of the case.
-
- Danger lies in the fact that these cases in which
journalists and newspapers cooperate, affect not only the victim
but also the freedom of press.
-
- At the same time as some journalists accept to be used
as tools by governmental authorities in launching campaigns
targeting the reputation of activists, who might also be
journalists, such campaigns also destroy the credibility of the
press itself. This gives justification for the enemies of free
press to attack it. In addition, many of those journalists who
take a role in these "dirty operations" often themselves become
victims of these operations when disagreement occurs between them
and the governments and security authorities that use them. A
careful look into a country such as Egypt and its current
campaigns shows that some of the campaigns against journalists are
because they at one time accepted to play such a role in the past.
As a result these journalists find it difficult to find support
from the press and activists.
-
- Following is detailed accounts of some of these cases:
-
-
- Tunisia
-
- Tunisia is the most Arab country that is a member state
in international human rights covenants. This is what some know
about it. It is also the most stable country in North Africa, and
this, too, some already know. This is exactly what the Tunisian
government propagates. However, what many might know is not
necessarily the truth. Ratifying and signing international human
rights covenants or the stability of a country leads to an
important question. How does that influence the situation of
activists and the status of freedom of expression? How did
stability occur? Was it through providing security or through the
oppression and control of security forces?
-
- A recently published report by the World Organisation
Against Torture and the International Federation of Human Rights
stated in the Middle East and North Africa section on Tunisia that
all violations were committed against civil society and human
rights activists, starting with violence, arbitrary arrests, and
terrorising them, in addition to violating the right to activity.
This means that Tunisia is the only country that commits all these
violations that could be distributed amongst several countries!
-
- "In 2005, defenders were victims of assassinations,
abductions and death threats (Iraq), acts of violence (Bahrain,
Morocco, Tunisia), arbitrary arrests and judicial proceedings
(Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Saudi
Arabia, Syria, Tunisia), acts of harassment and intimidation
(Syria, Tunisia), as well as infringements to their freedom of
movement (Occupied Palestinian Territories)" .{3}
-
- As for the right of association, the report stated:
- "Freedom of association was once again blatantly flouted
in Tunisia, where many independent associations were still not
legally recognised by the authorities, such as the National
Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT), the International
Association for the Support of Political Prisoners (AISPP), the
Tunisian Association Against Torture (ALTT), the Centre for the
Independence of Judiciary and Lawyers (CIJA), the Assembly for
Alternative International Development (RAID-ATTAC) and the
Observatory for the Freedoms of the Press, Publishing, and
Creation (OLPEC)" .{4}
-
- Of course, for these harassments to become tangible
violations they have to strike at specific persons, whether they
be journalists or political or human rights activists. Following
are a few examples of such cases.
-
-
- Sihem Bensedrine
- No Arab human rights activist has been exposed to what
Sihem Bensedrine was exposed to from assaults and fabricated
cases, embodying the unity of state authorities in confronting an
individual in order to defame her name and create obstacles to her
efforts to shed light on the deteriorating situation created by
security authorities that don't know honourable disputes or the
basics of the democratic process.
-
- After security authorities failed in destroying Sihem
Bensedrine's will during the 1970s and 1980s, the use of "dirty
operations" against her started with the participation of yellow
press affiliated to the Tunisian government, such as Al-Shorouq,
Al-Hadath, and Al-Sareeh. A rabid campaign started, aiming at
defaming her name and reputation, beginning with accusing her of
prostitution and the call for stoning her to forging pornographic
pictures of her. The aim was to destroy her history and
reputation. Fortunately, this did not work.
-
- According to Lutfi Hajji, never had such obscene words
been used or the situation reached such vileness towards a
citizen. {5}
-
- The situation reached the extent of eliminating all
means by which Sihem Bensedrine could earn a living. She was
deprived from receiving her membership card from the Tunisian
Press Association after Ben Ali assumed full control of it. The
publishing house Al-Sabbar, which Bensedrine established, was shut
down. It reached an extent that whoever wanted to get close to the
dictatorship had to attack Bensedrine and participate in the
"'dirty operations" launched against her.
-
- It seems as if it's a natural solution to get rid of
Sihem Bensedrine. She was prevented from receiving medical care
while in the Manouba women's prison when she fell ill in July
2001, especially that she did not fully recover from the brutal
police assaults on her in 2000.
-
- Despite these "dirty operations" targeting her,
Bensedrine won the 2004 International Press Freedom Award in
Canada for her struggle for a free press in Tunisia, even though
Tunisian authorities have shut down all five newspapers in which
she worked.
-
-
- Radya Nasrawy
- Whenever one searches her name on any of the Internet's
search engines, many headlines come out in the results. Many of
the headlines include statements such as: "Radya Nasrawy was
beaten …", "Following the arrest of Radya Nasrawy …", "Radya
Nasrawy was targeted …", etc. All these headlines reflect what the
human rights activist suffered from as a result of her defence of
the rights of Tunisian citizens, which the security authorities
have been trying to deprive them of.
-
- Radya Nasrawy's face is scarred as a result of a brutal
attack committed by Tunisian authorities, which also targeted her
young daughter, while she was organising a demonstration in
solidarity of the prisoner of opinion Mohammed Abbou in March
2005.
-
- As a form of division of labour, we find attacks against
Radya Nasrawy, the lawyer and head of the Tunisian Association
Against torture (ALTT), take place on two levels. On the one hand,
the Tunisian police clearly practiced physical assault on her, the
last of which was the attack that broke her nose because of her
solidarity with the prisoner of opinion Mohammed Abbou, in
addition to burning her office door and stealing her files, not to
mention stealing her car. On the other hand, under the supervision
of the police, some journalists have started to dig up her past
and have forged abhorrent stories about her. One of these
journalists claimed that Radya Nasrawy was extramaritally
impregnated by Hemma Al-Hammami during her visits as a lawyer to
him while he was in prison. In response, Monsef Al-Marzuki said
about this journalist, that he doubts that the journalist has ever
been imprisoned because of a principle or a case like that of
Hemma. The journalist did not even refrain from presenting
Tunisian prisons as if they were parks in which reckless lawyers
can get impregnated by their lovers. {6}
-
- In this manner, press does not refrain from defaming
activists and attempting to destroy their reputations, even though
they are in prison, raising questions on the extent to which these
"dirty operations" have reached.
-
-
- Mohammed Abbou
- On February 28, 2005, the lawyer Mohammed Abbou, leading
member of the Congress for the Republic Party, published an
article on the Internet. The article criticised the invitation of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to visit Tunisia during the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) organised by the
United Nations in November of the same year in Tunisia. As a
result, security authorities kidnapped Mohammed Abbou the
following day and tried him. He was accused of a framed crime
dating back to June 2002, claiming that Abbou had harmed his
colleague Dalila Marad during a dispute between them in June 2002.
In addition, he was accused of a crime related to the article he
published on August 26, 2004 on Tunisianews Web site, entitled The
Iraqi Abu Ghraib and the Tunisian Abu Ghraibs. In the article,
Abbou compared between the status of Iraqi prisons and political
prisoners in Tunisia. The article condemned torture practices on
Tunisian prisoners and the silence of the judiciary.
-
- Following an unfair trial that cannot be described at all
as a fair trial, in which only 30 of the more than 850 lawyers who
had voluntarily come forward to defend their colleague were
recognized by the court, the court sentenced Mohammed Abbou to
three and a half years imprisonment. The yellow press disseminated
the news using the following headlines:
-
-
- 1. Al-Sabbah newspaper published on April 30, 2005, on the
front page, "For violently attacking his colleague and defamation,
the court sentences Mohammed About to three and a half years
imprisonment".
- 2. Al-Shorouq newspaper on April 29, 2005, published an
article entitled "Mohammed Abbou is tried for physically
assaulting his colleague, causing her serious injuries, and for
inciting the people to violate the country's laws".
- 3. Al-Sareeh newspaper crossed all lines as it considered
Mohammed Abbou's trial to be unfit because the context of the
trial was not related to the lawyer profession but rather to a
citizen who attacked another citizen, in addition to another
accusation that is totally contradictory with the fact that he is
lawyer who should contribute to the implementation of the
country's laws.
- These are all articles that present Mohammed Abbou as
merely a deviant and violent person inciting the violation of the
laws of the country and accused in a criminal case.
-
- These articles ignored the basics of good journalism as
they did not present to public opinion the circumstances of the
accusations directed against Abbou. These articles also revealed
the intentions of the judiciary, which insisted on connecting the
two cases and dealing with them in the same session and judicial
district, even though this is against the simplest guarantees of
the right to defend oneself .{7}
-
- Even though more than a year has passed since the
imprisonment of Mohammed About and despite a wide campaign, the
Tunisian police are currently continuing their "dirty operation"
against Abbou. The police have threatened Abbou and his wife that
they will frame the same immoral scandals against his wife if the
solidarity for him and the demands for his release do not stop
.{8}
-
-
- Naziha Rajiba (Om Zied)
- On February 28, 2004, the Tunisia appeals court sentenced
Om Zied and Mohammed the Fifth Al-Hany to a six-month suspended
sentence because she had 170 Euros in violation of the law.
-
- This is what Tunisian newspapers affiliated to the
government published. However, the newspapers intentionally
ignored the fact that Om Zied had refused to stand before the
appeals court because she was convinced that it was not
independent and defence before the court that is controlled by the
executive authority is useless. In addition, she stated that this
case was framed in a scandalous manner. She was carrying 170 Euros
sent to Mohammed the Fifth by his brother via Om Zied to help him
pay the rent of his flat after the security authorities had closed
all doors for the man to find a living, simply because he is the
brother of Abdel Wahab Al-Hani, an activist. Also, these
newspapers did not publish the comic procedures by which the trial
was conducted; comic to the extent that the judge told one of the
lawyers not to worry as there won't be any imprisonment. This only
comes to prove that the sentence was pre-arranged.
-
- Even more, the case-if you consider it to be one-does not
carry a prison sentence in the first place. The case, according to
law, simply entails confiscation; not to mention the fact that the
amount of money was small and trivial.
-
- Om Zied, a teacher who had been teaching for 35 years,
left her job with a reasoned resignation because of her fear of
the police authorities that control teachers, particularly as
Tunisian police are accustomed to attack teachers.
-
- After that she worked as a journalist with several
newspapers in addition to her Web site Tunisia's Word
http://www.kaklimatunisie.com/, one of the Web sites expressing
independent press and which has been blocked in Tunisia. Because
Om Zied is one of those who cannot accept the horrific practices
of the Tunisian government and has her free pen to confront the
government with, and because her husband is the activist lawyer
Mohammed Al-Mokhtar Jelali, she is a target for dirty operations
performed by the Tunisian security authorities and their allies.
The last of these operations was on March 7, 2006, when her
husband received an anonymous letter threatening him with a sexual
scandal and demanding 100,000 Dinars in return for silence.
-
- A day before the letter arrived, Jelali received a
telephone call in his office, also from an unknown person, using
the same threats. The caller emphasised that he is not from the
police and promised that Jelali would cry like a woman .{9}
-
- In an article written by Om Zied, she presented evidence
that the anonymous person is affiliated to the security
authorities. She also insisted that such dirty operations do not
affect her as they incriminate the perpetrators and not the
victims .{10}
-
-
- Abdallah Al-Zawary
- In early 1991, journalist for Al-Fajr newspaper Abdullah
Al-Zawary was arrested in a campaign that targeted many Tunisian
citizens. On charges of belonging to the banned Al-Nahda Islamic
movement, he was imprisoned for 11 years. Following his initial
release in June 2002, however, Tunisian security forces did allow
him to enjoy the freedom he had been deprived of for so long.
-
- Zawary was re-arrested in August 2002 and sentenced to
another eight months in jail for not respecting monitoring
procedures. After his release he contested a decision by the
minister of interior to send him into internal exile in Al-Gerba
district of Gergeis City, which lies 500 km away from his
residence. The goal was to deprive him from living with his
family, and to make his and his family's life difficult.
-
- Zawary was released for a short period, during which a
new case was being framed. He was accused of attacking the owner
of an internet café by insulting her in public. As a result
he was sentenced to four months in prison.
-
- Zawary remains exiled, deprived from work and from living
with his family. He is restricted from contacting the foreign
world, even through the internet.
-
-
-
- Egypt
- Egypt is a security state, propelled by a quarter century
of emergency law. But the heavier security becomes, the greater
the danger.
-
- It is not the ordinary citizens who suffer the greatest
risk however, but rather the security authorities, those who
constitute prominent perpetrators of corruption and the ruling
party. Thus it appears that the authorities have no choice but to
carry out 'dirty operations' against activists, journalists and
even large sectors of citizens. While they act in the name of
national security, their goal is in fact the maintenance of the
security of the ruling party and the corrupt.
-
- While Tunisia is perhaps better known for its experience
in the field of 'dirty operations', Egypt nevertheless continues
to pursue its own projects. Not only does Egypt carry out 'dirty
operations' on individuals but also on a collective level, without
the slightest degree of accountability.
-
-
- Gamal Abdel Fattah
- Pharmacist Gamal Abdel Fattah has been a political
activist since the 1960s, and has been arrested and accused in
several political cases. Near the end of 2000, he was elected to
become one of the members of a leadership group for the Popular
Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada in Cairo.
His peaceful activism contributed to garnering support for the
Palestinian cause.
-
- Because of the Egyptian security authorities' poor
reputation, however, Abdel Fattah refused to meet the head of the
state security bureau in Cairo, in what turned out to be his
gravest error.
-
- In the middle of the night of 13 May 2002, 18 police
officers stormed his residence, claiming he was selling expired
restricted pharmaceutical medicines (prescription-only). He was
also accused of intentionally spreading tendentious news in a bid
to disturb public security. When Abdel Fattah asked to see the
court order for the search, he was physically assaulted and
insulted. Police proceeded to arrest him and to confiscate
medicines and money, in addition to publications related to the
support of the Intifada.
-
- However, for lack of evidence, no formal charges could be
brought against him. But the goal of this operation seemed to have
been secured when Al-Ahram ran a news story about the case the
following day, in violation with Egyptian and international press
codes. In an unhindered bid to cast a slur on Abdel Fattah's
reputation, the item mentioned him and his pharmacy by name, as
well as his pharmacy's address. Professional codes of ethics
prohibit the publication of names of accused prior to the
establishment of guilt. But in spite of the story, which was
published to punish him for his active support of the Palestinian
Intifada and for refusal to meet the state security bureau chief,
Abdel Fattah's reputation remained unscathed. He is widely known
to be an honest political activist.
-
- Later, Abdel Fattah was interrogated by the prosecutor
for the Basatin district of Cairo. The prosecutor uncovered the
'dirty operation' against the activist. According to Abdel
Fattah's lawyer, the drugs combating officer cursed the state
security bureau that involved him in this case, in which he was
about to be transformed into a criminal.
-
- Before the Basatin prosecutor was able to take a decision
in this case, the file was withdrawn and transferred to another
bureau of the prosecution, in an attempt to find a loophole and
charge Abdel Fattah.
-
- No formal charges were pressed against Abdel Fattah,
except for his possession of political publications in the
pharmacy, for which he paid a fine after confessing that they were
indeed his, confirming his right to support the Intifada. He did
not deny his ownership of these publications. Rather he confirmed
that freedom of expression is a right that should be guaranteed to
all.
-
-
- Ayman Nour and Gamila Ismail
- Never did Ayman Nour think that what human rights
organizations, opposition political parties and the independent
press in Egypt said about the nature of the police state was true.
On the contrary, he fully believed government claims in newspapers
of their support for political participation, free elections and
partisan plurality. Consequently, he established opposition
political party Al-Ghad, not to acquire the title of "head of
party", as many have done in the past. Rather he established the
party in order to reach power through democracy and ballots. To
this effect, he started to strengthen his presence in parliament,
and announced his support of the reform movement in Egypt.
-
- Because Nour was not simply a political activist, but
also a strong parliamentarian and head of a party, he rose to
prominence in Egypt, thus posing a serious challenge to the
hegemony of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The scale
of the 'dirty operation' that lay in store for him was
proportionate to his crime - namely, the peaceful search to rule
Egypt.
-
- He was framed in a power of attorneys' case. His
parliamentary immunity was lifted within hours, despite the fact
that it was a weekend. Several authorities and ministries
participated in the operation. The justice and interior
ministries, the public prosecutor, the People's Assembly (PA)
Speaker and the PA legislative committee - which is composed of 45
members - were all on call for the job on Friday 28 January 2005.
On Friday, Nour's immunity had been lifted, he was arrested before
he left the PA, and a rabid press campaign against him was
launched. Indeed, the press campaign against him did not exempt
his wife, Gamila Ismail. Numerous newspapers criticized her,
targeting everything from her fashion sense to her reputation. It
even appeared as approaching the Egyptian government depended on
providing proof of loyalty by destroying Nour and Ismail's
reputations. Both official and independent media outlets took part
in this operation, conveniently ignoring the fact that Nour was
innocent until proven guilty.
-
- Nour's trial began in June 2005 and continued for almost
six months. He was sentenced to five years in jail in December of
the same year. The trial itself was plagued with irregularities.
To start with, the defendant and his lawyers did not understand
why the trial ran for so long. But the intention to deform Nour
and his family's reputation became clear as members of the tabloid
and state-run press were allowed in for each of the 17 sessions.
The defamation campaign went as far as disseminating doubt about
Nour's degrees and history. Some even questioned his lineage to
his father Abdel Aziz Nour, who died in grief during the trial
period.
-
-
- Black Wednesday - female journalists and activists on
referendum day:
- Sexual harassment has become the newest tool to be
implemented by Arab government authorities against opposition
activists during demonstrations. The Egyptian government was the
first to employ the method. Photographic evidence gathered by
Egyptian and foreign journalists and live footage broadcast by
international news agencies documented in detail the first public
incident of this kind.
-
- Female Egyptian demonstrators and several reporters -
some of them foreign - were sexually assaulted, had their clothes
torn off and had their bodies groped. Among the journalists was
Nawal Aly Mohammed, who works for Al-Geel newspaper. On 28 May
2005, she took the torn white jacket she was wearing when she was
publicly attacked by supporters of the ruling NDP at the entrance
of the Egyptian Press Syndicate to the local police station. It is
worth noting that during the assaults, police did not
interfere.{1} Physical and sexual assaults targeted all those who
demonstrated and those who tried to demonstrate against the
nominal referendum that the state carried out. But women and girls
bore the brunt of the attacks in all three places where protests
had been called: by Saad Zaghloul's grave, at the Egyptian Press
Syndicate and at the Lawyers' Syndicate. Attacks were made in cold
blood, and were condoned by well-known senior officers and
prominent members of the ruling party. In addition, some activists
say the head of a women's rights organization collaborated in the
incident, who was seeking to be rewarded by the ruling party by
being nominated in the parliamentary electoral list.
-
- The goal of the coordinated assault was to send a clear
message to women, namely that they would be sexually harassed if
they continued to take part in the reform movement and if they
persisted in their calls for democracy in Egypt.
-
- In the majority of 'dirty operations' that are staged
beyond the legal framework, whether in Egypt or any other country,
junior officials generally shoulder the blame in a bid to save
those higher up in the chain of command from losing face. However,
in the case of Black Wednesday, the role played by senior
officials quickly became common knowledge. Reports issued by human
rights organizations and victims mentioned their names. However,
given the nature of Egypt's chief public prosecutor, the officials
in question had nothing to fear. The judiciary had no power to
order an investigation without previous agreement from the
prosecutor. For, according to Egyptian law, any complaint filed
against a public officer has to be approved first by the public
prosecutor. As in many cases, this complaint did not find its way
to the courts.
-
- Eventually, investigations were frozen when the public
prosecutor claimed there was not enough evidence, thus ignoring
statements made by witnesses, photographs and video footage that
captured the attacks.
-
-
- Seleem Azzouz
- In 2000, Seleem Azzouz, who at the time was working for
Al-Ahrar newspaper, launched a press campaign against former
agriculture minister Youssef Waly over his imports of agricultural
pesticides that cause cancer. In light of this, a man posing as a
former interior ministry official phoned Azzouz, and said he would
provide him with documents incriminating a senior security
officer.
-
- Azzouz went to the appointment, which had been set up in
the Moqattam area. There, he was violently attacked by several men
and left with what became permanent deformities to his face,
composed of four longitudinal scars. They left him after warning
him of the consequences of crossing such red lines.
-
- With difficulty, he made his way to Al-Khalifa police
station to file a report on the incident and against the
perpetrators. However, he found that the officers in the police
station were also involved in the conspiracy. A short while later,
he was surprised by the entrance of a woman who claimed that she
was his wife by urfi, or blood marriage, and that they had been
engaged in "immoral acts" in the Moqattam area. The 'dirty
operation' was rounded off with the arrival of a considerable
number of journalists, who had been informed by security officials
of Azzouz's presence in the police station, allegedly for an
immoral case.
-
- Meanwhile, his wife phoned him and told him that she had
been informed that he was being held for involvement in an immoral
case. She told him that she would send one of her relatives to
him. A few minutes later, Azzouz received another phone call from
his wife. She said had she received a second call, and that she
was specifically told not to send a relative to the police
station, but rather to go herself. It was at this point that
Azzouz realized how the operation had been staged. Both his wife's
and his own telephones had been under surveillance.
-
- Ultimately the 'dirty operation' against Azzouz failed.
Both his wife and journalists covering the story realized he had
been framed. The woman used by the state security bureau grew
frightened as the truth began to emerge. She withdrew her
statement. {12}
-
-
- Even Students:
- Following the start of the second Palestinian Intifada,
demonstrations in solidarity of the Palestinian cause were staged
in cities across the country. Cairo University students became
particularly influential leaders in these popular solidarity
movements.
-
- State security authorities could neither control nor
tolerate the rapid surge in protests, which were in part directed
against Egypt's diplomatic stance in the region. Thus the
solution, in their point of view, was to launch 'dirty operations'
against the leading students.
-
- Soon enough, more and more students found that they were
being framed. Among the cases set up against them were accusations
of stealing mobile phones, of engaging in immoral behaviour on
university grounds and of physically attacking fellow students. In
fact, their only crime had been the peaceful expression of their
opinion.
-
- State security authorities did not consider the youth of
the students they targeted, or the fact that their accusations may
well expose them to new dangers in future. They arrested several
students and physically attacked them. In other cases, students'
families were called in by security bureaus, and were forced to
sign statements pledging that their sons would not demonstrate. In
particular, some female students were threatened by their families
with being forced to give up their university studies for
participating in demonstrations and for being arrested by state
security. Others were temporarily expelled, while still others
were banned from sitting exams.
-
- These framed case files remain open to this day, so do
thousands of others that the public prosecutor has not yet closed,
perhaps in expectation of the day that they can be used once again
to the detriment of the accused.
-
-
- Bahrain
- Faced with the challenge of imposing power over a
majority Shia population, the Sunni-led Bahraini government has
implemented two measures to counter the imbalance: unfair
naturalization and the extreme oppression of activists, who are
mostly Shia.
-
- When human rights activist Mohammed A. (last name
withheld) visited Bahrain to hold official meetings and to meet
with numerous civil society organizations, he noticed how he was
under constant surveillance by six persons. He was told by local
friends that those watching him were affiliated to the police, and
that they were naturalized in order to be employed by the Bahraini
security services.{13}
-
- It appears that the Bahraini state security bureau has
had a free hand dealing with opposition and activists. And it is
clear that it has followed the Egyptian and Tunisian examples,
framing activists with crimes they did not commit, and sexually
assaulting them.
-
-
- Abdel Raouf Al-Shayeb
- In a Ministry of Interior statement distributed to
newspapers and news agencies in March 2004, it was claimed that
activist and former prisoner of opinion Abdel Raouf Al-Shayeb was
caught committing an immoral act with an Indonesian servant in her
employer's residence in the Al-Refaa Al-Sharqy district. Police
had reportedly monitored the house for some time. The statement
went on to add that the prosecutor decided to detain Al-Shayeb for
a week pending an investigation.{14}
-
- The ministry was keen to punish Al-Shayeb for his views,
and to prevent him from organizing a march set to take place
during the Formula One race during the first week of April 2004.
-
- Intentionally or not, Akhbar Al-Khaleej and Al-Ayam
newspapers contributed to the attempt to slur his reputation, by
disseminating the ministry's statement.
-
- Prior to being framed, Al-Shayeb had just returned from
Geneva, where he presented a file on victims of torture in Bahrain
to several international bodies that attended a Human Rights
Summit.
-
- If we overlook some of the more minute details of the
case, there are clear parallels to be made with the case of
pharmacist Gamal Abdel Fattah in Egypt. As in Al-Shayeb's case,
Abdel Fattah was framed in order to slur his reputation as an
activist. The different authorities' reasons and goals were
identical.
-
-
-
- Moussa Abd Aly
- On 22 November 2005, a group of up to 500 unemployed
citizens gathered at the Bahraini Institute for Training, to head
towards the royal divan to demonstrate and call for the
implementation of the pledge to provide them with job
opportunities. There, negotiations between a committee from the
royal divan met with five representatives for the unemployed,
including Moussa Abd Aly, on the basis that they would then be
invited by the royal divan to discuss the issue the following day.
-
- Eventually, the divan did not invite them. Rather,
members of the committee representing the unemployed received
telephone calls during which they were threatened with punishment
if they demonstrated before the royal divan again.
-
- But the unemployed stood their ground and organized a
protest for the following week. Pre-empting the protest, Bahraini
Special Forces attacked Abd Aly near his home on 28 November. When
he unsuccessfully attempted escape, they fired several rounds into
the air. His hands were tied with a plastic rope, and he was taken
to a desolate spot in an industrial area in Satra Island. There,
the officers beat him with bats, while two of them stripped him
and tried to rape him. They were eventually prevented from
completing their assault only by the force of his resistance.
However, they left clear marks on his body. They also told him
that they would attack his wife and the rest of his family if he
and the unemployed insisted on holding the protest the following
day, and that he should inform the rest of the protestors of the
instructions. At around 2:30am, they left him lying on the ground
and departed from the scene. {15}
-
- As it happened, the scandal affected the security bureau
somewhat more than it did Abd Aly. For the minister of interior
denied initial statements that his officers were not involved in
this 'dirty operation'. After meeting with Abd Aly, his father and
human rights activist Nabil Ragab, the interior minister said
that, given his responsibility towards all citizens and his duty
as a father, he would not condone such attacks on anyone, thus
confirming his personal concern with the case.{16}
-
- However, two weeks later, Abd Aly announced that he would
no longer cooperate with the public prosecutor on resolving the
issue. Abd Aly said the prosecution was more interested in making
scapegoats of and terrorizing the perpetrators of the crime than
in reaping justice, in an attempt to make government bodies and
the officials involved appear innocent.
-
-
- Conclusions
-
- A report written by Hina Jilani, special rapporteur for the
United Nations Commission of Human Rights (according to General
Assembly resolution 55/98 dated 4 December 2000 and the Commission
for Human Rights resolution 61/2000 dated 26 April 2000, which was
ratified by the Economic and Social Council 220/2000 on 16 June
2000), cited several different kinds of violations that human
rights activists and journalists face across the world. The
following is a selection of these points:
-
- - Exposure and criticism of policies and practices that
violate human rights have resulted in legal proceedings against
human rights defenders as a retaliatory measure. Many have
suffered long drawn-out trials, sometimes under procedures that,
reportedly, fall far short of the standards of a fair trial. - The
reporting of human rights violations has frequently led to charges
of spreading false information, defamation of authorities or
disturbance of public order. The peaceful expression of views on
human rights issues has been termed as "incitement", civic
education programs have led to charges of sedition and criticism
of discriminatory practices has been prosecuted as an offence
against religion.
-
- - Mail and faxes are commonly intercepted, Internet facilities
cut off and telephones tapped. Incidents of offices being broken
into and theft of information have been reported. Computers and
disks containing information on the work of NGOs are usually what
are carried away.
-
- - Smear campaigns against human rights defenders have become a
tool increasingly used to discredit their work.
Government-controlled media are used for slanderous accusations
and attacks on the honour and reputation of non-Government human
rights organizations and individual defenders. Many such campaigns
carry comments of senior government officials, targeting human
rights defenders who criticize or expose repressive State policies
or action.
-
- - Human rights activity is reviled in such terms as "damaging
national interests", "disturbing social peace" and, especially the
propagation of women's human rights, spreading "immorality" or
"obscenity". In the case of women's human rights defenders,
vilification of this nature by Government or non-State entities
has resulted in physical attacks, threats and ostracism.
-
- - Finally, a growing number of States tend to create
governmental NGOs in order to discredit the work of independent
NGOs at the national and international level. {17}
- These points serve to clarify governmental malpractices
against activists in the Arab world. And in the case of the three
countries selected as case studies for the purposes of this
report, the parallels are clear. As mentioned in the report,
Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain have all established semi-governmental
human rights councils, which work in apposition to independent
organizations.
-
- However, none of these councils have condemned any of
the 'dirty operations' perpetrated against activists and
journalists. In Tunisia, the governmental human rights council in
Tunisia took no steps to condemn the sentencing of journalist
Mohammed Abbou, who was imprisoned for three and a half years for
an article he wrote. The Egyptian National Council for Human
Rights did not lobby for an investigation into the attacks
perpetrated against women journalists during the referendum in
2005. Likewise, the Human Rights Committee in Bahrain did not
remind the minister of interior of his pledge to find out who
sexually attacked Moussa Abd Aly.
-
- The following are a series of recommendations issued by
the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information to the relevant
authorities. We have excluded security services as they are the
tool used to carry out the 'dirty operations'. In future, we hope
the security apparatus proves itself worthy of the respect that
would enable us to address its members as authorities who respect
the law and the rules of dealing with political opposition.