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Senior interior ministry officials sanctioned the use of live ammunition against protesters in Suez during the opening days of Egypt‘s revolution, according to a leaked fact-finding report commissioned by the president.

Under the watch of the interior ministry’s most senior representative in the region, police fired indiscriminately at crowds from the roof of a police station, according to the report, and senior police officers allowed their deputies to remove weaponry from official stores without presenting identification. The report also describes how a military officer ordered plainclothes police to carry firearms through the streets even after police had been officially evacuated from the city.

These are the latest revelations from a tranche of a report commissioned by the president, Mohamed Morsi, that has been leaked to the Guardian. The new material covers the events of January and early February 2011 in Suez, the first large city to hold major protests against the rule of the then president, Hosni Mubarak.

Earlier leaks documented allegations that the military were involved in torture, killings and forced disappearances during the uprising.

According to the new material, senior interior ministry officials were responsible for the order to use live ammunition to disperse large gatherings, resulting in the deaths of 24 protesters. It claims that high-level officials including Ashraf Abdallah – the ministry’s most senior representative in the region – remained in Suez for the opening days of the uprising, and were present in the city as gunmen stationed on the roof of a police station shot “extensively and indiscriminately” into crowds of demonstrators.

Extensive police brutality in Suez has long been alleged by residents and rights campaigners. But the report is significant because it is the first hint of an official state acknowledgment of the crimes. No police officer has ever been jailed for their treatment of protesters, nor has it ever been proved that their behaviour was sanctioned centrally.

“This report is incredibly important because it contains internal orders from the ministry of the interior,” said Heba Morayef, Egypt director for Human RightsWatch. “That is incredibly important evidence that hasn’t come to light yet. The key question is whether or not police were ordered to arm themselves with live ammunition – and the report concludes that the ministry of interior classified the protest as riots, and that then justified an excessive response on the part of the police.”

The chapter documents an “excessive use of force” in densely populated residential areas, with police using tear gas, bird shot and live ammunition. According to one witness, the scene resembled “war in the streets” – and overall the report creates an impression of a chaotic police response that was nevertheless sanctioned by central powers.

In at least one instance, security forces targeted with live rounds citizens standing on balconies as they threw water bottles to the crowds below, testimony compiled by the report alleges. In other evidence, witnesses describe how three noncommissioned officers were joined on the roof of a police station by a chief inspector, and fired machine guns and pistols into the crowds below.

The strength and intensity of the protests in Suez took officials by surprise, and it is where the first deaths of revolutionaries occurred. Fearing the kind of unrest that had swept Tunisia’s president from power 10 days before, security officials in Suez issued instructions on 24 January that sanctioned extensive police surveillance and deployments in areas where large crowds could gather.

Police in Suez were the first security officials to kill protesters during the revolution – but none has since been sent to jail. According to the relative of a dead protester who gave testimony to the commission, security officials would later try to avoid culpability by refusing to hand over bodies from the city’s mortuary in order to minimise the likelihood that complaints would be filed against them.

Throughout the uprising, armed police in plainclothes roamed the streets of Suez, according to interior ministry documents compiled in the report. In one video seen by the committee, a man identified as a plainclothes police officer is shown firing erratically in the streets. The report claims the practice of disguising armed security personnel in civilian clothes continued even after 29 January when the police were officially evacuated from the city.

The report also alleges that shotguns and other weapons were handed over to police conscripts without IDs. Although security experts could not confirm whether this represents an explicit breach of protocol, they argued that it reflected the chaotic nature of decision-making within police stations as the security services struggled to bring protests under control.

Rights activists hope the leaking of the report will lead to the conviction of the many Suez policemen and officials who remain at large.

“One of the main problems over the past two years has been the difficulty in identifying the perpetrators. In this report, a number of police officers and sub-officers who are not included in current trials are explicitly identified,” said Karim Ennarah, a researcher on police and criminal justice at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. “All should be suspended and, based on the evidence contained in the report, should be prosecuted.”

He added: “The findings of the report, based on witness accounts, an inspection of areas surrounding police stations, and a review of the ammunition issue orders and deployment orders, prove excessive use of firearms doesn’t even come close to what has been documented in Suez.

“This was nothing short of cold-blooded murder. Police officers identified in the report can be charged for murder, at the very least attempted murder if a direct link cannot be established between weapons used and deaths.”

But this week, that did not look likely. One lawyer involved in an ongoing trial of police accused of crimes in Suez during the 2011 uprising – and who was also involved in the drafting of the report – said his findings had not been taken into account by the trial judge. “If the prosecution had done their job, they would have investigated and used it. But I don’t think they have done anything,” said Mohsen Bahnasy, a human rights lawyer.

The report was presented to the president himself in January, but so far it has not been officially published, creating the impression that Morsi wishes to sweep its damning contents under the carpet.

The presidency told the Guardian on Wednesday that he had not yet read it because it was still be investigated by the prosecutor general. There is a feeling that Morsi wants to avoid angering senior members of the military and police, on whose support the success of his administration depends.

But campaigners stressed it was essential that the report’s recommendations were first published officially and then acted on. Any other response, they said, would give the police the green light to continue to behave with impunity.

“This report needs to be made public by the president. It needs to be published so that it can have that official stamp of endorsement,” said Morayef. “If we haven’t even had a [presidential] condemnation of the repressive response by police during the revolution, then that’s what creates this impression that they [still] have absolute discretion.”

Egypt’s interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

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Senior Egyptian army doctors were ordered to operate without anaesthetic on wounded protesters at a military hospital in Cairo during protests against military rule, according to an investigation commissioned by president Mohamed Morsi. The report into military and police malpractice since 2011 also alleges that doctors, soldiers and medics assaulted protesters inside the hospital.

The findings, which relate to the army’s behaviour during the Abbassiya clashes in May 2012, are the latest leak to the Guardian of a suppressed report investigating human rights abuses in Egypt since the start of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Earlier leaks alleged that the military were involved in torture, killings and forced disappearances during the uprising.

The new chapter contains testimony from doctors and protesters about the treatment of injured demonstrators at the Kobri el-Qoba military hospital in Cairo in May 2012.

It alleges that a senior military doctor ordered subordinates to operate on wounded protesters without anaesthetic or sterilisation and reports that doctors, nurses and senior officers also beat some of the wounded protesters. It also claims that a senior officer ordered soldiers to lock protesters in a basement.

The chapter concludes by recommending an investigation into the highest echelons of the army leadership – a deeply significant development. Even though the report has not been officially published, its status as a presidential document – coupled with the extent of its conclusions – represents the first acknowledgment by the state of the scale of the atrocities both during and since the 2011 uprising.

“I can’t overestimate the importance of this report,” said Heba Morayef, the director of Human Rights Watch in Egypt. “It’s incredibly important. Until today, there has been no official state acknowledgement of excessive force on the part of the police or military. The army always said they took the side of protesters and never fired a bullet against them. This report is the first time that there has been any official condemnation of the military’s responsibility for torture, killing, or disappearances.”

According to a doctor on duty at the hospital, whose identity was withheld in the report: “Military doctors, soldiers and medics inside the hospital assaulted protesters by severely beating them and verbally assaulting them.”

He also described how another senior military officer “ordered doctors not to give any sorts of anaesthetic during treatment or stitching. He also ordered that their wounds should not be cleaned”.

The doctor also alleged that a senior military official assaulted the already injured patients “and then ordered his soldiers to lock them up in the hospital basement”. His testimony is corroborated by injured protesters who were treated at the Kobri el-Qoba hospital that day. Using hospital records, investigators confirmed that all the witnesses were indeed present at the time of the alleged events.

One human rights campaigner said the military’s alleged actions were comparable to war crimes, as defined by the Geneva conventions.

“The findings that people were tortured in a military hospital and that senior military doctors ordered subordinates to operate without anaesthetic are more than just shocking,” said Karim Ennarah, a researcher on policing and criminal justice at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. “If this happened in the context of war, against prisoners of war, this would be a war crime. It’s a serious violation of the most basic medical ethics in any context, let alone in the context of a demonstration where the military were facing citizens from their own country.”

The Abbasiya clashes in May 2012 – the second major disturbance to occur in the area in less than a year – were sparked by protests against the military dictatorship that followed Mubarak’s downfall. Abbasiya is the home of Egypt’s defence ministry, and became a focal point for protests during military rule. At the protests in May 2012, two died and nearly 400 were injured in battles between protesters and soldiers.

But the report uses video evidence to allege there was also a third force involved in the clashes: “baltigiya”, or thugs paid off by the military to infiltrate, disrupt and harm protesters. “The committee was able to confirm a collusion between security and army forces and baltigiya,” the report states, citing a range of photographs, testimonies and videos that show baltigiyas eating army food, travelling in army vehicles, and joking with army officers. “We want to stay together,” one baltigiya is told by an official, while another was pictured driving an army vehicle – a moment, the report states, “which leaves no doubt that civilian thugs were operating under the army commands.”

Members of the 16-man committee that drafted the report, which included lawyers, campaigners, relatives of victims, and members of the judiciary, expressed their frustration that the report had still not been released via official channels. The 1,000-page dossier was presented to the president in January, but a spokesperson for his office told the Guardian on Wednesday that he had not yet read it because it was still being investigated by the prosecutor general.

“This report is not being regarded as it should be,” said Mohsen Bahnasy, a leading human rights lawyer, and one of the senior members of the committee. “There is new evidence that needs to be investigated and none of that has happened.”

“The leaks expose a truth that clearly the president was hoping people would forget,” said HRW Egypt director, Heba Morayef. “This report needs to be made public by the president. It needs to be published so that it can have that official stamp of endorsement.”

A spokesman for Kobri el-Qoba hospital refused to listen to the allegations when contacted by the Guardian. He also refused to pass on any contact details that would allow the Guardian to put the allegations to the hospital in writing.

The Egyptian army did not respond to any faxed or emailed requests for comment. A spokesman for the army press office refused to comment or release contact details for other sections of the military.

]]> http://leloveluck.com/2013/04/08/violence-breaks-out-in-cairo-after-coptic-funerals/feed/ 0 POTD-Egyptian-prot_2529412b leloveluck http://leloveluck.com/2013/03/19/bbc-radio-4-from-our-own-correspondent/ http://leloveluck.com/2013/03/19/bbc-radio-4-from-our-own-correspondent/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:44:52 +0000 Louisa Loveluck http://leloveluck.com/?p=1137 ]]> I recently recorded a piece for BBC Radio 4′s From Our Own Correspondent. It focuses on one of Egypt’s deadliest ever train crashes: in November last year, 51 children were killed after their school bus was destroyed by a speeding train in the southern governorate of Asyut. The piece starts at 12:24.

This piece was originally published by the Christian Science Monitor:

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The police have withdrawn from the streets of the Suez Canal city of Port Said, and in the el-Sharq police station, officers in civilian clothes huddle around their weapons, waiting for an attack.

Egypt’s police are under assault as representatives of a state and a security apparatus that, protesters say, remains brutal and unreformed two years after change was demanded in Tahrir Square. El-Sharq’s officers say they feel besieged by criticism from the media and a public that do not understand the difficulty of being caught between the government and the growing number of Egyptians angry with its actions.

They have joined police in at least 10 other governorates in a strike to demand better weapons, new political leadership, and immunity from prosecution. They say their weapons are inadequate for protecting themselves from the crowds they are sent out to control and they face what they consider unfair repercussions for their tactics.

Deputy Station Chief Mohamed el-Adawy claims that Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim has turned the police forces into a political tool by using them to control anti-government and anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations.

“He is using the security forces as the first tool in political fights”, he says. “So we now refuse his orders.”

The police strikes are a rare public display of dissent from an institution that is much better known for suppressing demands than for voicing them. Egypt’s security services have been vilified for helping President Mohamed Morsi’s government crackdown on protesters.

But last week police in Alexandria and Ismailia refused orders to deploy to Port Said as the government struggled to regain control over violent street clashes there. Four days of fighting left more than 450 injured. On Friday morning, more than 30 police stations were closed in just a few hours. By nightfall, 10 barracks of riot police were also on strike.

Demonstrators or thugs?

El-Sharq’s officers insist that weapons are not used against those who express legitimate grievances, but demonstrators say that unarmed protesters are routinely targeted with live ammunition.

Lying in a hospital bed, Amr Kamel shows bullet wounds in his chest, arms, and back that he says were sustained as he ran from police at a demonstration last week. His father says an unknown man visited the family and warned them against telling the media that their son had been shot with live ammunition.

Eyewitnesses at the scene describe a violent standoff between police and protesters, with small rocks being thrown by some of the demonstrators. According to Kamel, police eventually broke through the line of demonstrators, and chased them through the dark roads, firing as they ran.

But el-Sharq’s officers insist that protesters were not the targets. “There were a lot of thugs beside the demonstrators,” says Adawy. “Maybe they shot them by accident.”

The regularity with which officers find themselves policing political demonstrations has prompted police to call for the resignation of the country’s interior minister.  They argue that Mohamed Ibrahim is too close to President Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party and that in a period of increasing polarisation between the Muslim Brotherhood and opposition groups, he is using the police force to silence dissent against Islamist rule.

In addition to grievances about being asked to stand against their own people, police officers also argue that they are not equipped to defend themselves at ongoing, sometimes violent demonstrations, claiming that their weapons often date back to the 1970s.

“They’re not working properly”, says Mahmoud Metwaly, a sub-officer, “When you have a [misfiring] weapon it’s like it doesn’t exist. I’m not asking for everything. I just want the minimum.”

Mr. Adawy waves his hand at the boxes of bullets that litter his desk. “This city is full of thugs,” he says. “This ammunition is not for demonstrators, it is for people who we know will be coming to the station.”

Do police need protection too?

The officers also want legal protection from prosecution for harsh tactics they consider essential to do their job. They say their ability to work is being stymied by fears that a single misstep might result in a jail sentence.

But two years on from Egypt’s revolution, the judiciary maintains the feeblest of records when it comes to prosecuting police for killing or injuring demonstrators. Last week, Mohamed el-Shenawy, known as the “Eye Sniper of Cairo,” became only the third police officer to be jailed for attacking demonstrators since January 2011.

Mr. Shenawy is accused of intentionally blinding demonstrators with his shotgun, an act that el-Sharq’s officers believe should be afforded immunity under their proposed law. They believe that they should be afforded leeway to use a higher degree of force when defending state institutions.

“We believe that anyone acting illegitimately should be charged,” emphasizes Metwaly, “but Mohamed el-Shenawy was defending a very important institution: the interior ministry.”

The policeman’s case came to light through YouTube footage that showed him firing at protesters during several days of violence in a street near Cairo’s interior ministry in November 2011. The officers believe that Shennawy’s prosecution proves that the current legal framework protecting police is insufficient, and argue that Shennawy’s actions were justified as they took place one street away from their ministry’s headquarters.

“Before people criticize us for using force against demonstrators, they must stand with us on the other side of the line,” says Ahab Kamel, a sub-officer in Port Said’s police force. “Thousands of people are attacking us.”

The Army steps in

As the strike gathers momentum, draining the government of security manpower on the streets, Morsi has ordered their full withdrawal from Port Said’s streets and called on the Army to step in.

Announcing news of the police’s withdrawal to crowds gathered outside the city’s security directorate, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Wassefy was greeted with chants of “the Army and the people are one hand.” Despite a troubled stint in power after the fall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s military commands a far higher level of respect than the police, and is viewed by many as a symbol of national pride.

According to Robert Springborg, an expert on Egyptian military affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, the military’s response to the request to contain protests will be more mixed.

“The military has never wanted to be in the crowd control business, nor do they want to be seen as taking orders from President Morsi,” says Professor Springborg. “But there are no other institutions with the authority to step in.”

Because the Army’s budget and leadership are autonomous, it is in a strong enough position to assert independence from the government – even as they accept its request to deploy on the streets of Port Said, Springborg says.

Meanwhile, Egyptian police are increasingly reluctant to even acknowledge their job in public. Back inside the beleaguered el-Sharq station, Adawy looks hounded as he reflects on his decision to stop wearing police uniform.

“As an officer today, I have zero-self esteem. I am hiding that I am an officer wherever I go.”

As the majority of coalition forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan at the close of 2014, concerns are growing for the future of the detainees they must leave behind. During the course of the twelve-year war, NATO troops have apprehended thousands of suspected insurgents, most of whom have been released or transferred to the Afghan authorities. However, renewed fears regarding the prevalence of torture in Afghan custody have forced ISAF forces to halt the process of handing prisoners over to the Afghan authorities.

In a damning report released last month, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan  (UNAMA) concluded that torture is an “institutional policy or practice” in at least ten of the country’s detention facilities. The methods include beatings, suspension from the ceiling and electric shocks. Transferring prisoners to face such conditions is a breach of international law. But as ISAF remains tied to a fixed timetable for military withdrawal, the need to find a legal solution to prisoner transfer, by getting rid of institutional mistreatment, grows ever more pressing.

For the British government, the issue is a particularly thorny one, and its approach to transfers has drawn sharp criticism, both from human rights groups and lawyers acting on behalf of prisoners who faced mistreatment after being transferred from British custody.

On 29 November 2012, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond was forced to re-impose a third moratorium on the transfer of UK-detained prisoners to the Afghan intelligence service (NDS). As of October 2010, the UK had detained 1,399 individuals, of whom at least 487 were transferred to the Afghan authorities. Today, the number remaining in British custody is believed to stand around 70.

Hammond’s decision to ban transfers came after two years spent defending the practice of releasing detainees into a penal system where abuse has been described as widespread. The day before a high court hearing into the legality of a previous transfer that had resulted in allegations of sustained abuse, the Defence Secretary obtained new (as yet undisclosed) evidence suggesting that prisoners transferred to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) were indeed at “real risk of serious mistreatment or a flagrant denial of justice”.

The ban on prisoner transfer appears to have been vindicated by the new UNAMA report. After interviewing 635 inmates held across 89 detention facilities, UN representatives concluded that the culture of abuse was most prevalent within NDS Kandahar, a key destination for UK-detained prisoners once they have been transferred.

So far, the British government has aimed to minimise the risks facing detainees by using a two-pronged strategy. This strategy involved ‘diplomatic assurances’ from the Afghan security services that the individuals in question will remain free from harm, while at the same time monitoring and encouraging the use of surveillance within detention  centers.

The practice of striking diplomatic deals regarding torture has long been controversial. Amnesty International has condemned the practice as a dereliction of both states’ duty to take the overall threat of torture seriously. The specific focus on the treatment of individual detainees, Amnesty argues, ignores a wider picture of abuse in which confessions are regularly extracted through mistreatment. Amnesty has also pointed out that diplomatic assurances are not legally binding and not only that, but they have no enforcement mechanisms. This leaves the governments involved to voluntarily assume responsibility for investigating breaches and holding perpetrators to account. In the case of Afghanistan, levels of accountability for mistreatment remain very low. According to the recent UNAMA report, over the last 18 months, NATO representatives have reported 80 allegations of detainee abuse to Afghan authorities, according to the recent UNAMA report. To date, Afghan officials have only taken action over one case.

Britain’s latest agreement with Afghanistan regarding the treatment of prisoners was signed in a low-key meeting between Asadullah Khalid, head of the NDS, and a representative from the British Foreign Office. To say that Khalid is seen by many to be a deeply flawed interlocutor is putting it lightly: he has been described by Canadian diplomats as someone ‘known to personally torture people’ in a ‘dungeon under his guest house’.

The worth of Khalid’s assurances against the use of torture is monitored by a team of British military personnel. They conduct interviews with UK-transferred prisoners, questioning them about their detention experience and giving them an opportunity to register any allegations of mistreatment. However, critics argue that British monitoring efforts are at best ineffective and at worst lead to a systematic cover-up of abuse. The human rights charity Reprieve has documented examples of British monitors finding torture equipment in interrogation rooms, but saying nothingout of fear of ‘causing a scene’. More concerning still, UNAMA this week reported receiving “sufficiently reliable and credible information that officials hid detainees from international observers and held them in underground or other locations.”

This is not to say that monitoring does not have an impact. UNAMA observed that some NDS facilities saw a decrease in allegations of torture during the one-year period in which the interviews took place. This corresponded with a decrease in transfers by international military forces and increased monitoring. However, after ISAF nations resumed transfers to these facilities and reduced its monitoring, incidents of torture appeared to rise once again. Monitoring is a useful and necessary stage in the quest to eradicate torture in Afghan detention facilities. It is not, however, a silver bullet.

Britain’s repeated bans on prisoner transfer to the Afghan authorities have led to a shift in strategy when it comes to detentions. Military operations are usually conducted in conjunction with Afghan forces, and it is now the latter that is expected to take charge of any arrests.

But this does not solve the problem of what to do with the prisoners who remain in British custody. Speaking at a press conference in Kabul on Monday, Georgette Gagnon, UNAMA’s Director of Human Rights, emphasised the need for the ISAF governments to focus on “deterrents and disincentives to use torture, including a robust, independent, investigation process, criminal prosecutions and courts’ consistent refusal to accept confessions gained through torture”. Without such deterrents, she said, Afghan officials will have no incentive to cease the practice of torture.

As the date for NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan draws ever closer, the imperative for coalition governments to encourage such deterrents will grow ever stronger.

Popular anger against the brutality of Cairo’s police force was catalyzed last week when satellite television broadcast a video of Hamada Saber, a 48-year old laborer, who had been stripped naked, dragged, and beaten by the Central Security Forces near Morsi’s Presidential Palace.

Official reactions to Saber’s public humiliation were swift. Seemingly intent on preventing the footage from joining the annals of police brutality that defined the tenure of Mubarak and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), its publicity machine went into overdrive as it offered its own version of the night’s events. State media reported that Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim had made a personal phone-call to Saber, apologizing for his treatment, and the president’s office emphasized that Morsi himself had been “pained at the shocking footage.” This was followed by a Kafkaesque episode in which Saber testified from his police-hospital bed, claiming that it was the protesters, not the police, who had stripped and beaten him. According to this account, it was the Central Security Forces who had come to his rescue. However, after members of Saber’s family angrily contested this version of events, he retracted his testimony, implying that it came under coercion.

That the official response to Saber’s treatment came through an attempt to control the public narrative comes as little surprise in the context of Egypt’s post-revolutionary security reform effort. To date, this has largely been characterized by words, not deeds.

The Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Freedom and Justice Party’s named security sector reform as one of the seven pillars of its Renaissance Project, the official program adopted by the organization in the run-up to last year’s parliamentary elections. Unveiled in April 2012, the project pledged to restructure the interior ministry and issue a new law for governing the police. The early signs of Morsi’s presidency seemed encouraging. After winning control from the ruling junta through popular elections, he culled senior police and intelligence chiefs, removing major obstacles to civilian control of the security apparatus.

Yet Morsi did not pursue early opportunities for reform and the rising death toll from Egypt’s latest wave of unrest comes as a painful reminder of how little has changed. The only substantive change at the legislative level occurred under the short-lived parliament, as it passed amendments to Law No. 109 (1971) on the Organization of the Police. This removed the president’s right to act as the head of the Supreme Council of the Police and amended articles relating to pensions and salary controls. But these efforts were only aimed at minimizing rising discontent within the police ranks, and did nothing to address the issues that continue to facilitate brutality and abuses of police power.

The government has even resisted reform efforts from within the police. Since the January 25, 2011 revolution, at least three groups of mid-ranking police officers have responded to the institution’s systematic culture of abuse by proposing initiatives that would cleanse it of corrupt generals and introduce better training and more effective accountability mechanisms. But despite meeting with presidential and parliamentary officials, their demands have fallen on deaf ears.

Morsi’s government has instead resorted to repeated use of the Emergency Law. First implemented under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser, this legal maneuver has been used as a legislative Band-Aid to mask the absence of structural change. It allows the police to detain suspects for extended periods before sending them to military trials, as well as to subvert constitutional rights and curb press freedoms. According to Heba Morayef, Egypt Director at Human Rights Watch, these emergency provisions can encourage police abuses. In particular, she says, the process of removing detainees from the civilian justice system “takes away any oversight that [civilian] prosecutors might provide.”

The lack of reform continues to be felt most acutely outside the capital. Since 2011, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) recorded repeated instances of “unnecessary recourse to firearms” by police in the governorates outside Cairo. In Minya and Beni Suef, the organization even documented cases in which groups of policemen engaged in revenge attacks on civilian neighborhoods.

But after the latest round of unrest, it is the Suez Canal city of Port Said that appears to have experienced the bloodiest policing episode of the post-Mubarak era. Although an exact timeline of events has yet to be established, clashes between police and civilians on January 26 resulted in 28 deaths; seven more people were killed after a funeral march the following day. In response, Morsi implemented a state of emergency in the city, imposing a curfew and extending the powers of the military and police force. During a demonstration that broke the nighttime curfew, eyewitnesses report that an armored personnel vehicle shot “indiscriminately” at the protesters. According to Morayef, the deaths in Port Said highlight “not just that the concept of proportionality [doesn't] resonate, but also that there are no limits on the right to use force” against protesters operating near state installations.

As the implications of the lack of reform play out on Egypt’s streets, the degree to which the government desires change remains an open question. According to Dr. Omar Ashour, a professor at Exeter University who has conducted extensive interviews with Muslim Brotherhood and security officials, “they have the will but they don’t have the capacity. This is because there is strong internal opposition within the ranks of the interior ministry and there is also a deep mistrust between them and some of the figures within the interior ministry. In addition, the Presidential Palace is being attacked every few weeks and in the middle of this, they need the security services so they don’t want to shake them up.”

Growing polarization between the country’s political elites has further stymied the chance for reform, according to Ashour. As certain sections of the opposition have attempted to convince defense and interior ministry officials of their own strongman credentials, he says, the political context grows yet more reform averse.

However, even if Egypt’s government lacks the capacity to reform, it retains the ability to minimize levels of confrontation through its own rhetoric. Since mid-2011, there has been a shift in the tone of official declarations regarding the role and responsibilities of the police force. Initial acceptance of a need for change has given way to a focus on the importance of strength in the face of unrest. Declarations now emphasize the right of the Central Security Forces to defend state property with whatever force it sees fit. As Egypt’s bloodshed continues to reveal, such pronouncements can be tragically inflammatory.

Since 2006, British forces have been detaining suspected insurgents in Afghanistan as part of Operation Herrick. As of October 2010, the UK had detained 1,399 individuals, at least 487 of whom had been transferred to the Afghan authorities. Since then, at least seven further transfers have taken place.

The government had hoped to reduce the number of detainees in line with ongoing troop withdrawals which are due to be completed by 31 December 2014.  But in November Defence Secretary Philip Hammond revealed new evidence suggesting that prisoners transferred to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) were at “real risk of serious mistreatment”.

It would be a breach of international law to transfer detainees to the custody of another state under such circumstances. And human rights groups monitoring the situation are concerned that the safeguards to prevent mistreatment when the detainees are transferred are untested.

Beatings and shackling

The November moratorium coincided with a High Court ruling on the legality of prisoner transfer to the Afghan authorities. The case had been brought on behalf of Serdar Mohamed, an Afghan farmer who was arrested by British forces in April 2010. He was later transferred to a number of NDS facilities in which he is alleged to have suffered extensive mistreatment and torture.

According to his lawyers, Mohamed was deprived of sleep for a continuous 72 hour period while detained in Kabul. During this time he was hooded and handcuffed to a bar.

Mohamed’s legal team told the court that the mistreatment included “beatings on his feet, twisting of his testicles, causing intense pain and bleeding from his penis for at least a month afterwards, and extended periods of shackling so his body was bent backwards in an arc.”

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had previously argued that prisoners could be handed to the Afghan authorities in a manner that was consistent with its policy not to transfer to facilities where there are grounds to believe that serious mistreatment is taking place.

However, as the Defence Secretary accepted in November, this calculation is no longer workable.

Four out of the seven prisoners who have been transferred from British custody since 2010 have made allegations of mistreatment in Afghan custody.

The Bureau’s own research, informed by discussions with human rights groups and legal teams acting on behalf of the Afghan detainees, suggests that the UK is now responsible for the detention of approximately 70 detainees in Afghanistan. A spokesperson for the MoD would neither confirm nor deny this figure.

Monitoring torture

As the withdrawal date for Britain’s military draws closer, the UK’s approach to arrests and detentions has shifted. Although its troops regularly seize suspected Taliban insurgents, operations are now conducted in conjunction with Afghan forces.

According to Peter Quentin, a Research Analyst at the Royal United Services Institute: “There are considerable regulations on detention procedures, to the extent that troops have, if at all possible, avoided detaining individuals and left it to their partnered Afghan National Security Force.”

The question of what to do with existing prisoners is more difficult. Basic ‘safeguards’ against mistreatment, including CCTV cameras and logbooks for recording malpractice, have been installed in NDS detention facilities. However, lawyers representing the UK’s Afghan detainees claim that these have yet to be fully implemented and in many cases, are untested.

Conditions within detention facilities are monitored by a team of military personnel known as the UK Detention Oversight Team (UKDOT). The group liases with the Afghan authorities to secure regular and private access to post-transfer UK-captured detainees, who are also visited by Embassy officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Members of UKDOT conduct interviews with UK-transferred prisoners, questioning them about their detention experience and giving them an opportunity to formally register allegations of mistreatment.

The British government describes these visits as “key elements of the UK’s strategy for mitigating the risk of mistreatment.”

A problematic approach

However, critics argue that British monitoring efforts are at best ineffective and at worst lead to a systematic cover-up of abuse. Human rights charity Reprieve has  documented examples of British monitors finding torture equipment in interrogation rooms, but saying nothing out of fear of ‘causing a scene’.

There are also concerns over the level of access that British monitors have within detention facilities, and over the artificial nature of their inspection. The Afghan authorities receive forewarning of UKDOT’s arrival, a factor that Richard Stein of Leigh Day and Company, the legal firm representing Serder Mohamed, says encourages the cover-up, rather than the eradication, of abuses.

According to Heather Barr, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, these measures can only achieve limited success in the absence of an internally-driven effort to stamp out torture.

However, she believes that there are a host of factors that can affect the success of Britain’s detention monitoring programme: “The questions are: who is doing the monitoring, how experienced are they, [and] how much continuity is there in terms of them interacting with individual prisoners?”

British detention monitors are recruited from within the military and the usual six-month rotation period for UK personnel in Afghanistan makes it difficult to ensure continuity. According to Barr, this makes it harder for UK officials to build up the necessary rapport with individuals who are expected to use the short interview to give an honest account of their treatment within the facility.

“The complexity of the society here means that if you’re a British military officer who showed up a week or two ago to take over from someone else, you’re not going to have much capacity to understand any of this and to navigate the reefs that exist along the way”, says Barr.

The way forward

As the date for military withdrawal draws closer, time is running out for the British authorities to find a workable and legally acceptable solution to prisoner transfer. Barr emphasises that there may be a difference between the ‘right’ solution and the course of action that is most likely in light of the impending troop withdrawal.

The answer to the first question, she says, is for the British government, in conjunction with other key donor countries, to get tougher with the Afghan authorities: “Donors who have a presence in Afghanistan and who are funding the Afghan security forces need to tell [President] Karzai. ‘if you don’t end the torture, we’re going to stop the money’.”

However, in practise, Barr believes that the British solution is likely to involve an attempt to strengthen the safeguards against mistreatment that UK monitors have already begun to install in Afghan detention facilities.

When asked to comment, a spokesperson for the MoD described the ongoing detention operations as an ‘important part’ of the UK’s work in Afghanistan, emphasising that it ‘is committed to working closely with the Afghan authorities to promote peace and security while respecting Afghan sovereignty and honoring international human rights obligations.’

As we enter the family home in Tunis, it becomes clear that the lives of Tunisia’s vilified jihadists cannot be reduced to the images of pious fanaticism on which the western media relies. We are greeted by his sister; unveiled, she is casually dressed in khaki cut-offs and a vest top. She says she feels under no pressure from Hassen to dress conservatively. His brothers, too, have followed very different life trajectories. Karim, in fact, goes by the stage name “Minissi” and has gained a large domestic following for his self-produced rap music. In contrast, their eldest brother is a military man, having served as an army sniper during the Ben Ali era.

The life of 34-year old Hassen has, of course, taken a different turn. In 2003, he traveled to Iraq as a fighter but ended up stationed across the border in Syria, operating a safe house for potential jihadists as they were vetted and trained for the mission ahead. There, he was arrested and deported back to Tunisia where he was imprisoned under the anti-terrorism law. And it was in these jails, Hassen tells us, that Ansar al Sharia was born. He claims that communal prayer time served as a forum for discussion and refining ideas that would be put into practice on release.

Ansar al Sharia’s moment arrived with Tunisia’s revolution. In March 2011, the new transitional government pardoned a number of prisoners who had been convicted under the Ben Ali regime’s repressive anti-terrorism laws. Among their number was Sayf Allah bin Hussayn (more commonly known as Abu Iyadh), who would lead a press conference the following month to announce the public debut of Ansar al Sharia.

A fighter abroad and a preacher at home, Hassen believes that it is now his duty to open da’waoffices across the country, offering a religious education that conforms to Ansar al Sharia’s interpretation of Islam. “This is a long-term vision to prepare society,” he says, “We are for jihad, armed revolution, but we cannot do this if the people are not with us. It will only be possible when everyone is behind the vision. Look at Libya, the insurrection was only successful once armed and sharing a common vision.”

Although little is known about Ansar al Sharia, Hassen emphasizes that its members do not want to stay in the shadows. “Now we want to talk,” he says, “We want to be open, even if you are from the CIA.”

References to American power run through many of his assertions and he attributes his own imprisonment to the counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. “It used to be permissible to study the Koran openly,” he says, “but after 2004 the government terrorized us on American orders.”

He is referring to Tunisia’s 2003 Anti-Terrorism Law, legislation that allowed security forces to arrest civilians with alleged links to terrorist organizations drawing praise from the U.S. State Department. Cases were usually held in private court sessions and many defendants claim that their convictions were based on confessions extracted through torture.

Popular reactions to Ansar al Sharia’s emergence have been hostile. Described in the Tunisian media as an “Islamist cancer,” the secular middle classes have greeted its rise with a mixture of horror and revulsion. Nor has it found favor with more moderate Islamist groups. The ruling Ennahda party has blamed the organization for this month’s attacks on the U.S. embassy, and followers of the more moderate “scripturalist” brand of Salafism also distance themselves from the violent tactics of their theological counterparts.

When asked if Ansar al Sharia can realistically attract wider support, Hassen counters that Tunisian society has failed to listen to its message: “We are trying to extend our hand to the Tunisian people but they aren’t taking it yet. We bring a new vision of politics for the Arab world, but we know this will take time. After 50 years of Bourgiba and Ben Ali, people have lost their religion and we are feeding it.”

References to the broader regional context litter his speech, although he denies that his organization is operationally linked to organizations in Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Morocco that share the same name.

Turning to the subject of attacks on U.S. targets in Tunis the previous week, Hassen chooses his words carefully. Young Ansar al Sharia followers were involved, he says, but not on the direct instructions of the leadership.

“We do not deny that violent acts were committed in our name. We have made mistakes and many of our number have been behind bars. Now we are rehabilitating them, but this will take time. They need to be educated in the very foundations of Islam.

These boys of the districts follow us because they are tired of politicians’ immorality. They appreciate our coherence: our words come straight from the heart.”

A visit to Tunis’s working class El Khadra suburb the previous day suggested that there is truth in this sentiment. Although few were willing to openly align themselves with Ansar al Sharia, several young men expressed admiration at the organization’s piety and its refusal to engage in high-level political squabbles. Abu Iyadh’s name commanded particular enthusiasm, in the words of one young man, “he is strong where Ennahda are weak. He is the only man to stand up against the Americans.”

Demographic studies of those convicted under Tunisia’s anti-terrorism laws show that the jihadists have previously found these neighborhoods to be fertile ground for recruitment. Today their inhabitants remain as socially and economically marginalized as they were under Ben Ali, a reality which continues to escape many who rail against Ansar al Sharia as an aberration within Tunisia’s cosmopolitan society.

“We stand in solidarity with the weakest,” Hassan says, “and in time we will have local leaders who organize the boys.”

Yet the notion that Ansar al Sharia’s message has found real resonance within small sections of Tunisian society continues to escape the country’s chattering classes. High-level political discussion revolves around constitutional issues with little attempt to address the grievances of the most vulnerable. But this is a social blindness that they cannot afford to maintain. “For us, this is an opportunity to plant our seeds in the sunlight.” Hassan concludes, “and we are starting to see the fruit.”

Yet despite the pervasive nature of the term, it does not yet have a widely accepted legal definition. Broadly speaking, it is used to describe equipment and intelligence that cannot be directly used to kill. This can encompass anything from helmets and body armor to more facilitative assistance such as encrypted radios and satellite imagery. In practice, the lines between non-lethal equipment and its lethal counterparts are more blurred. In fact, both are required for a soldier to maximize the use of his weapon. As Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, points out, “a guy with a helmet and a radio is more likely to use his gun effectively because his protection increases his survivability and his radio [improves] his targeting through better communication.”

Nevertheless, the distinction between lethal and non-lethal weapons is a crucial one for the governments involved in their supply. According to Wezeman, any move toward arming the rebels would be “very politically sensitive indeed.” As Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague has emphasized, the British position is “not about taking sides.” How the move toward assisting the rebels will be seen within the Assad regime’s inner chambers is perhaps another story.

To date, the bulk of the formalized non-lethal assistance deliveries to Syria’s loosely organised rebel fighting brigades are coming from the United States, Britain, and France. The U.S. State Department has set aside $25 million to supply Syria’s opposition with non-lethal assistance, distributing 900 pieces of equipment through its Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). The British government has currently set aside £1.9 million for its own deliveries, distributing these through a slowly expanding network of vetted contacts. The French approach has been slightly different. Focusing instead on targeted areas, Francois Hollande’s administration has identified five specific “rebel held” areas within which to concentrate its assistance. These are all within Deir Ezzor, Aleppo, and Idlib, governorates that have faced waves of intense bombardment from regime forces in recent months.

Tracing the passage of western non-lethal assistance is a tricky endeavor. As with the rebel’s growing arsenal of weapons, it is often difficult to establish whether a single item was sourced from a British shipment, smuggled across the border, or looted internally from regime stocks. However, several known types of assistance have found their way to Syria through British, U.S., and French efforts: body armor, communications equipment, intelligence support, and satellite imagery.

Emphasizing that arming the Syrian rebels would involve breaching the EU’s arms embargo on the country, the British government has focused instead on providing body armor and helmets as part of its assistance package. Hague told the press that this is viewed as “lifesaving protective equipment for civilians to help those carrying out vital work in the crossfire.” Similar commitments have also come from the United States and France. Body armor is, of course, a vital part of any soldier’s tool kit. For many, this will be the difference between life and death.

One of the most widely documented forms of non-lethal assistance has been communications equipment. This includes encrypted radios, satellite phones, and SIM cards. The United States, Britain, and France have publicly committed to providing such assistance. Although justified on humanitarian grounds — British assistance can be used to warn civilians of impending regime assaults according to Hague — these can also be used by rebel brigades to enhance their fighting capabilities. As Wezeman points out: “The rebels have [increasingly] got the kind of firepower they require but then need the means to organize their fighting. This is where [communications] equipment is essential in a military campaign on this level.” In the case of Libya, it has been argued that similar efforts to organize rebels with command-and-control equipment played a significant role in enhancing their coordination and fighting capabilities.

Although communications equipment remains sparsely distributed, those who receive it gain an important tool with which to counter extensive regime surveillance and signal-jamming efforts. It also allows brigades to communicate securely across different areas, opening channels that can be used to give prior warning of government attacks.

Another significant avenue for non-lethal support is through intelligence. Syrian opposition officials report that British intelligence officers are stationed in two Cyprus military bases. Here they collect information that is then passed on to rebel commanders. This allows opposition fighters to preempt the regime’s movements. It also provides the means to plan surprise attacks, a tactical necessity for fighters so outgunned by the state’s extensive arsenal.

According to the Syrian officials, intelligence support has facilitated a number of successful ambushes in Idlib and Saraqib, including an attack on 40 army tanks. The assault on two large columns of government troops as they moved toward Aleppo was well documented when it happened in early August, although the source of the intelligence was not revealed at the time.

The men of the rebel Farouk Brigade, tasked with defending the town of Talbiseh, appear lightly armed in the face of the regime’s firepower as they face daily incursions from government forces. But their M16s and worn anti-aircraft guns are aided by more high-tech paraphernalia: high-resolution satellite imagery. Access to recent images of the areas in which they are operating provides a small but significant advantage to the groups who possess them. Not only can they get a better picture of areas they may not be able to easily reach in person, but they also receive prior warning of regime troop build-ups.

The U.S. Department of Defense is believed to be one source of such images. This would be consistent with previous non-lethal assistance to fighting groups in Libya. In addition, the United States is currently the only country with the technological capacity to conduct regular satellite photography missions over Syria.

The video below illustrates how such non-lethal assistance could be deployed in pursuit of fatal ends. Using a Google satellite map of an area in Hama that appears to have been supplemented with newer maps — the image on the screen differs from the current version on the Google Maps website — the rebels are planning an assault on regime-held territory. As apparently evidenced by the flames that engulf their target at the end of the video, this level of accuracy can engender deadly success.

Western non-lethal assistance is not solely confined to the battlefield. Governments are also providing software in an attempt to help the rebels circumvent the regime’s extensive internet surveillance efforts. This offers an important level of security for the beneficiaries, allowing them to leave their communication channels open. To this end, the U.S. State Department is distributing software as part of its assistance package to the opposition. According to Professor Philip Howard, a fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, the State Department has been investing in “circumvention tools” for several years now. A range of tools for making internet users anonymous have also been developed by the New America Foundation and the University of Toronto. As well as specific software packages, the United States is already likely to be providing direct satellite link-ups and internet radios. As Professor Howard explains, these are “important tools that make for direct connections to the internet.”

Western non-lethal assistance will be of varying significance for different fighting groups in Syria. Although the United States, Great Britain, and France are encouraging greater coordination between countries providing external assistance, the passage of equipment remains slow. It is also sparsely distributed, and British officials admit privately that assistance packages only reach small groups within any given rebel brigade. Furthermore, the equipment’s usefulness will vary according to the size and strength of each brigade’s arsenal. Tactics are only as strong as the tools that implement them. If a Free Syrian Army foot soldier uses a gun that lacks the key constituent parts to function properly — a common problem with weapons that have been looted internally — then command-and-control equipment simply cannot be used to the same effect.

Current levels of assistance are unlikely to hasten the final stage of Syria’s bloody crisis. Nor are they expected to increase significantly in the near future as the United States, Great Britain, and France remain committed to solving the conflict through diplomatic means. But as this high diplomacy continues apace, the devastating reality of Syria’s war gouges deeper into the collective memory of a nation. Many will be questioning why such grand promises of assistance have done little to avert the unfolding tragedy.

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This piece was first published on Foreign Policy.