The Egyptian government’s threat to close down the only clinic for torture victims in Egypt is an ominous blow to basic human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
“Egypt is suffering from an epidemic of torture. But instead of addressing the crisis, the government desperately tries to cover it up,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are not content with harassing organizations that speak out against torture. Now they are using the health ministry to threaten those who provide torture victims with medical and psychological care.”
On Sunday, June 11, agents of the Ministry of Health descended on the Cairo offices of the El Nadim Center for the Psychological Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence. The El Nadil, which operates as a clinic registered with the Doctors’ Syndicate, provides treatment and rehabilitative services to torture victims. At El Nadim’s offices, the health ministry’s agents confiscated documents, including patient files and the center’s publications, photographed the premises, and behaved in an aggressive and threatening manner. Afterwards, they reportedly filed a complaint with the Ministry of Health accusing the El Nadim Center of using a clinic for prohibited purposes, a technical violation that could give the Ministry grounds to close down the Center.
Founded in 1993 by a collective of doctors and psychiatrists, the El Nadim Center offers services to men, women and children tortured by Egyptian police and security forces, as well as to victims of domestic violence. Its work has made it a repository of testimonies and medical documentation on torture in Egypt. It also assists victims by drawing public attention to the torture they have undergone, and by pursuing criminal charges against their abusers. One of the founders of the El Nadim Center, Dr. Aida Seif el-Dawla, received Human Rights Watch’s highest award as a global human rights defender in 2003.
Egyptian law severely restricts the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Many groups are forced to choose between closing their doors or risking imprisonment for operating without legal recognition as an NGO. The Law on Associations, enacted in 2002, allows the Ministry of Social Affairs to deny legal status to NGOs if they engage in political work or threaten “public order” or “public morals.” It also allows the Ministry to supervise the activities and funding of registered NGOs, and to shut down organizations without a judicial order, and to imprison their officers.
A number of organizations have been refused recognition under the law, including the Egyptian Association Against Torture, a group recently founded to combat the spread of torture. In a September 2003 letter that denied legal status to the group, the Ministry of Social Affairs condemned it for listing among its goals “to change Egyptian legislation in accordance with human rights conventions.” The Ministry said that civil associations had no legal right to be “concerned with legislation.”
“The threat to the Nadim Center is the latest government attempt to shut down peaceful political activity and stifle discussion of human rights,” said Roth. “Egypt is sending a message to the world that its torture epidemic will continue.”
