WUNRN
WEBSITE LINK INCLUDES DETAILED CHART WITH STATISTICS ON VIOLENCE, RAPE, DISCRIMINATION, & HARASSMENT OF EGYPTIAN WOMEN.
Egypt - Surge in Sexual Abuse
by Egypt Authorities - Report
Rights group says security forces
increasingly using sexual violence against men, women and children with
impunity.
The
report reveals the involvement of Egypt police, intelligence officers and the
military in sexual violence [EPA]
A new
study by a human-rights group accuses Egyptian security forces of increasingly
using sexual violence against men, women and children with impunity.
Released
on Tuesday, the report by the International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH), titled Exposing state
hypocrisy: Sexual violence by security forces in Egypt, indicates a
surge in sexual violence perpetrated by Egyptian security forces since the
military takeover in 2013.
Direct
Link to Full 32-Page 2015 FIDH Report: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/egypt_report.pdf
FIDH has documented widespread sexual harassment, rape and
sexual assault, rape with objects, anal and vaginal "virginity
tests", electrocution of genitalia, sex-based defamation and
blackmail perpetrated by police, state security and military personnel.
The report said the "multiplication of arbitrary arrests
has targeted an increasingly diverse range of victims: women, refugees, minors,
students, opponents to the regime or otherwise, and LGBT persons are now
frequent victims".
Katherine Booth, of the FIDH in Paris, told Al Jazeera that her
organisation decided to conduct an investigation after receiving increasing
reports of sexual abuse by Egyptian authorities.
"We do know that such crimes are being committed in police
stations, detention centres and informal detention sites as well as at
checkpoints during security checks," Booth said.
"There's a very widespread nature to the crimes and nobody
has been held to account which could indicate that this is tolerated by the
Egyptian authorities, if not encouraged."
Interviews
with victims
FIDH conducted interviews with victims, lawyers and members
of human-rights nongovernmental organisations (NGO).
According to one NGO quoted in the report, at least 16
complaints had been lodged by parents of detained children, alleging that
their sons had been victims of physical assault.
Another NGO had been informed of 10 sexual assaults,
including several rapes of minors by adult prisoners at the El Eqabiya
detention centre in Al Marg, northeast of Cairo.
In August 2014, three testimonies broadcast by the
journalist Mona Salman on the private channel Dream TV reported widespread
rape committed in the Eqabiya detention centre, where around 90 minors are
detained alongside adult criminals, under the supervision of Criminal
Intelligence services.
The Egyptian constitution
obliges the state to take necessary measures to protect women from all forms
of violence [EPA] |
Groups
supporting the Muslim Brotherhood reported that of 1,500 women members of
the group in prison, at least 20 cases of rape and several cases of forced
abortion had been documented.
There were also reported cases of prisoners forced to
watch pornographic videos and to wash floors with their naked bodies.
Between 2011 and 2014, FIDH also documented sexual violence
committed against women in public, from cases of mob rape and sexual assault
perpetrated by civilians during demonstrations around Tahrir Square.
"The scale of sexual violence occurring during arrests and
in detention, the similarities in the methods used and the general impunity
enjoyed by the perpetrators point to a cynical political strategy aimed at
stifling civil society and silencing all opposition," said Karim Lahidji,
FIDH president.
'Dragged
along the floor'
A student
who was a detainee was quoted in the FIDH report as saying: "The women
guards came at dawn to drag us along the floor without giving us time to
cover ourselves appropriately.
"They lined us up facing the wall and we were surrounded
by members of the anti-riot force and the guards then started frisking us
while undressing us and harassing us."
The Egyptian constitution, adopted in January 2014, guarantees
equal rights for men and women and obliges the state to take the necessary
measures to protect women from all forms of violence.
Since then, several "inadequate" steps have been taken
to increase protection, the FIDH said, but since the takeover by the army in
July 2013, sexual violence has appeared "as a central element of the
unprecedented repression to which opponents and civil society are
subjected".
The report said that the fact that those in power were using
sexual violence was itself a tool that scared victims from speaking out.