Security authorities released a few thousands of such detainees in batches over the past few years, according to security criteria which were taken as a protective measure Hence, it was not possible to put an end to this unfortunate phenomenon.
A number of them, which may reach up to thousands, are still under detention. Regardless of the statements made about the dangerousness of these individuals to public security, nevertheless this is an unfounded allegation and insufficient to breach the constitutional rule determined to implement the fundamental principle of innocence.

To this end, the NCHR submitted to the Ministry of Interior lists of 600 detainees in order to examine their cases. The Ministry of Interior furnished the NCHR with responses covering 265 cases, of whom 51 cases were released. The NCHR conducts daily follow-up with the Ministry of Interior. Nevertheless, it puts to record the relative paucity of the number of those released, and appeal for adopting more transparent criteria conforming with the international principles upon addressing this matter.

Treatment of prisoners and other detainees in prisons:

The government continued its efforts to enhance the conditions of prisoners and other detainees, as well as combating torture. This has included a number of positive measures, led by the Ministry of Interior which conducted administrative investigations in torture complaints, the Public Prosecutor who referred suspects in torture crimes to the courts and organizing training courses for police officers and prosecution attorneys in the field of human rights. The Ministry of Interior complied with the court verdict for removal of the grid fence between prisoners and their families during the visit.

However, complaints continued due to the persistence of mistreatment of prisoners and other detainees in the jails, which led in some instances to an open hunger strike, as happened in Algharbaniyat Prison in Alexandria by the beginning of May 2004 ⁽¹⁹⁾ and Abu Zabal Prison starting the 1st of November ⁽²⁰⁾.

Meanwhile, calls have risen for ending these practices once and for all. For such practices infringe upon the constitutional and legal rights of the citizens, and damage the reputation of the country. They eventually transform millions of citizens into terrified individuals who avoid public work, preferring safety to the risks of public participation in shaping the future of political reform as a whole.
This phenomenon, considered by the competent authorities as mere individual cases, included several cases, some of which are individuaistic such as the treatment to which the family of a prisoner who escaped from Al Mansoura Prison was exposed. Scores of members of the family were arrested and some were beaten up and hung upside down, which inflicted injuries on most of them, including a young girl who sustained a fracture in her arm.
All this was for the purpose of extracting information on the hideout of the run-away prisoner in order to arrest him.⁽²¹⁾

Although over-enthusiasm in combating crime and apprehending the criminals may be the overt motive for such illegal behaviour, nevertheless safeguarding human rights and freedoms should supersede any other consideration.
Some of such cases are collective cases as happened during the random detentions in North Sinai when many of the detainees and their families were exposed to torture. This is in addition to the allegations of the torture of seven suspects in Case No.462 of year 2004- State Supreme Security, known as "Muslim Brotherhood Organization", causing them to sustain several injuries.
One of the suspects suffers from uncontrolled urination as a result of electrocuting his genital organ. Another sustained a fracture in his hand and loss of balance as a result of continuous slapping on the ear. A third person sustained a fracture in the right arm, while another sustained a fracture in the ribs.
Lawyers of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) testified to the existence of numerous aspects of oppression and abuse practised on suspects. This includes the Prosecution chief's refusal to have the injuries of one of the detainees examined and the existence of state security officers in the prosecution building, which constitutes a violation of the law. ⁽²²⁾

Exercising torture does not only lead to violating the constitution, breaking the law, causing pain to the victims, and abusing their dignity, but it also results in misleading the justice. The year 2004 witnessed the continued and frequent cases when a number of suspects indicted in some crimes proved to be innocent, following the appearance of the true perpetrators and their admission of committing the crime.
One of these cases, was the discovery of the innocence of four suspects from "Tukh" in the homicide case of Khalid Abdul Tawab Younes in 2000. Under torture, they confessed of committing the crime. After serving three years of their sentence, the real criminal confessed of the crime by coincidence while in prison. The Public Prosecutor ordered the submission of a copy of the case documents to the Cassation Court to review the contestation of the falsely indicated individuals whose innocence was revealed. Further, five police officers involved in torturing the suspects in this case were put on trial ⁽²³⁾.

In another incident, the Public Prosecutor decided before the end of January to refer a police officer to trial on charges of torture and the attempt to extract a coerced confession as well as forging official reports, to force the actress "Habeeba" to confess to killing her Qatari husband, five years ago. The decision was made after the discovery that the crime was committed by other persons. ⁽²⁴⁾.

In a third incident, the Public Prosecution ruled to reopen investigations in Case No.6750/2004 Al Raml Crimes, and released Ibrahim Ibrahim El Sayed, who had under the threat of torture, confessed to killing his grandmother. The Public Prosecution's decision came after arresting the real killer who confessed to having committed the crime. ⁽²⁵⁾.

In a fourth incident, an accused confessed before the Public Prosecution to the burglary of a car. During the trial, it was revealed from the facts that he was detained for interrogation in another case on the same date the burglary was being committed. ⁽²⁶⁾.

Furthermore, allegations continued throughout the year, of extraditing Islamic fundamentalists suspected of being related to the El Qa'eda organization or of being terrorists, to Egypt for the purpose of extracting information from them under torture ⁽²⁷⁾, Amnesty International mentioned in a letter forwarded to the US President at the beginning of his second term, which it publicized on 19 January 2005, the incident of extraditing an Australian detainee under the name of "Mamdooh Habeeb" secretly from Pakistan to Egypt, where he spent six months. He was then transferred to the Guatanamo detention camp in May 2002 where be was detained without charge or trial for two and half years.

Habeeb told the federal court in November 2004 that during his detention in Egypt he was exposed to various kinds of torture, including electrocution, hanging down, severe beating and threatening with dogs.
American and international newspapers have constantly referred to the extradition of Islamic fundamentalists to Egypt and some other Arab countries under of a US presidential executive order passed in August 2002, which remained the target of severe criticism within the USA, until it was replaced on 30 December 2004.
Some of these sources mentioned specific incidents, including the extradition of Mamdooh Saad Iqbal Madani, a Pakistani who was detained in Indonesia in January 2002, to Egypt on board a CIA plane.
Revealing these details in its report, the NCHR seeks to inform the various authorities of such incidents and the related allegations stated in this respect, and that it has not received any replies from such authorities while in some cases it received vague replies that do not rebut the strong suspicions upon which these allegations were founded.

Furthermore, there are allegations that the Islamic activists Ahmad Agizah and Mohammed Al Zari who were expelled by Sweden to Egypt in an international extradition deal, had their human rights violated first in Sweden as asylum seekers, since the law there prohibits handing them over to an authority where they may be exposed to torture. Secondly, they were transported on board an airplane chartered by the USA to Egypt. Thirdly Agiza was tried and indicted by a military court. Following a television program on 17 May 2004 which uncovered the aspects of mistreatment on part of parties from the three countries, the government of Sweden called for "the conduction of an international investigation." ⁽²⁸⁾. The UNHCHR said the Human Rights and Torture Panels are currently investigating this case. ⁽²⁹⁾.

In the sphere of confronting torture in prisons and detention centres, the NCHR records the internal investigations carried out by the Ministry of Interior. It also records the establishment of disciplinary panels for complaints about exercising austerity and torture by some policemen, which are not announced in most cases. Further, the Public Prosecution refers the cases it verifies to the courts, including the Public Prosecutor's approval on 24 April 2004 to refer a police officer of Kafr Shokr Centre and a guard to the Penal Court on charges of torturing an elderly woman to force her to reveal the whereabouts of her son, wanted on account of a case in October 2003. ⁽³⁰⁾.

However, the investigations in these cases are very time-consuming. The families of the complainants or human rights organizations who file their reports to the Public Prosecution may not even know the fate of such reports. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), submitted a memorandum to the Public Prosecutor on 6 December 2004, in which it requested him to disclose the results of the investigations on 25 torture cases covered by the Organization's reports to the Public Prosecution in 2004. Its periodical follow-ups of such reports revealed that some of them were kept on file while no legal actions were taken in other cases ⁽³¹⁾.

Courts of competent jurisdiction are looking into the torture cases referred to them. During the year, they convicted a number of suspects in these cases, including the verdict passed by the Criminal Court in Alexandria in Case No.623- Supreme Court- Alexandria for year 2001, imprison two police officers on charges of torturing a citizen to admit killing his daughter who had disappeared ⁽³²⁾ This is in addition to the verdict of Helwan Misdemeanours Court handed down on 25 November 2004 to imprison three police officers who have physically and verbally abused a lawyer on 3 October 2003 and inflicted injuries on him that required more than 20 days treatment ⁽³³⁾¡ Further, the Cairo Criminal Court on 24 October 2004 initiated the trial of five officers at the Helwan Police State on charges of apprehending nine citizens inside the station and torturing them, as well as inflicting severe physical injuries on them, as revealed by the medical reports ⁽³⁴⁾.

The Egyptian courts handed down a number of compensation verdicts in torture cases ⁽³⁵⁾ including the verdict of the South Cairo Court on 19 July in Case No.15358/2003 for Mustafa Ameen Ibrahim to be paid LE 14,000 as a compensation for torture inflicted upon him during his detention from 7/7/1993 to 6/7/1995.

Such verdicts also include the verdict delivered by the South Cairo Court on 29 January in Case No. 24245/2003 for Tareq Abdul Sattar Ahmad Murad to be paid LE 15,000 as a compensation for torture inflicted upon him. They further include the verdict of South Cairo Court for Hamdi Mahmood Abdulmotaleb Ummara to be paid the amount of LE 14,000 as a compensation for torture inflicted upon him during his detention from 11/2/1996 to 11/7/1998.

On the other hand, a number of MPs posed questions to the Ministers of Justice and Interior in connection with a number of cases, by the end of November 2004. The Minister of Justice reiterated Egypt's compliance with the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the International Convention for the Prohibition of Torture and reaffirmed that the death cases which occurred within detention locations are dealt with by the Public Prosecutor who will decide what disciplinary or penal measures to be taken once the occurrence of any violation or acts which are punishable by the law are confirmed.
Further, the Minister of Interior denied in his response to a question that citizens are exposed to any mistreatment at police stations. He pointed to the existence of a permanent committee on human rights at the Ministry of Interior and a dedicated section at the office of the Public Prosecutor, responsible for any complaints in connection with these matters.
While the NCHR appreciates all this, nevertheless it still notes a gap between official statements and daily practices, which needs to be bridged.   

The right to fair trial :

The 1971 Constitution stipulates the principles of fair trial and, therefore, independent and impartial judiciary, and that no punishment is imposed except after a fair trial in which one has the right to defend oneself. The judiciary authority Law No.48 of 1971 regulates guarantees for the independence of the judiciary.

Courts are accustomed to following fair trial procedures. In many of its verdicts, the Cassation Court calls attention to consideration of fair trial of cases referred to all courts.

However, there are instances which represent non-compliance with the basic elements of fair trial:

1- Trial of civilians before military courts, with panels constituted of military judges, subject to the leadership hierarchy of the armed forces.

2- Trial of citizens before the State Security Courts which are established by decree from the President of the Republic, pursuant to the Emergency Law.

The Public Prosecutor has, however, announced in a press conference held by the end of July 2004, that the use of the emergency law in litigation procedures will be limited, except in cases related to state security, and that the Public Prosecution is narrowing down the scope of referring cases to the State Security Courts.

3- Protective custody in the penal procedures law, as part of the investigation measures and trial of criminal issues which can turn into a punishment by itself. The NCHR recommends laying down strict controls on protective custody, as well as determining its scope and the compensation claims in case of abusing it or prolonging its period.

4- Procrastination of litigation procedures, the constant rise in the number of cases being heard by the courts, the shortage in the number of judges, the shortage in the organs assisting the judiciary, and the absence of alternatives to solve disputes outside the courts.

At the level of extraordinary trials before the State Security "Emergency" Courts:

a- On 25 March the State Supreme Security "Emergency" Court convicted 26 persons, of whom 3 were British nationals, accused of belonging to the Islamic Liberation Party and punished them by imprisonment sentences ranging from one to five years.⁽³⁶⁾.

b- On 11 March 2004 and after the lapse of almost 11 months since the detention of the political activist Ashraf Ibrahim on 19 April 2003, the State Security "Emergency" Court exonerated him of the charges attributed to him, as well as four others: Nasser Al Buhairi, Yehya Ameen, Moustafa Al Basiouni and Reymond Edward Gindi, who were detained by mid 2003 on charge of forming an illegal leftist political organization for the purpose of overthrowing the political regime of the country. ⁽³⁷⁾.

At the level of military trials, the year 2004 witnessed a remarkable positive development, as no new decrees were passed for referring civilians to trial before military courts, despite continuous expectations of referring Islamic activities who were arrested on account of several cases in 2003 and 2004 and are facing charges related to infringement on the state security. The decisions to refer civilians to military trials were resumed following the September 11 2001 events, after a discontinuation which lasted for twenty months.

However, trial of the Islamic activist, Ahmad Hussien Agizah, was resumed in 2004 before a military court. He was sentenced in absentia to life sentence in 1999 along with 106 others on charges of his affiliation with "El Jihad Organization." He was extradited from Sweden by the end of 2001. The retrial was carried following the approval of the President of the Republic of his appeal. However, the military court convicted him once again on 27 April 2004 and renewed his punishment with life imprisonment. ⁽³⁸⁾.

Further, the military court has renewed the imprisonment of 15 suspects in the case known as "God's Soldiers Organization", which is considered one of the cells of "Al Jihad Islamic Organization" on account of investigation. These 15 suspects have been detained since their apprehension in 2001 and the period of their detention has been repeatedly renewed. ⁽³⁹⁾.

By the middle of the year the military governor ratified the verdict for the life imprisonment of "Anwar Abbas", referred to as the commander of the military wing of the Islamic Group Organization in Qena Governorate.
Sentenced to death by a military court "in absentia" in January 2004, he was handed over by the US Administration to the Egyptian authorities by the end of 2003. The military governor approved his petition for retrial before another military court chamber, which as outlined above punished him with life imprisonment. ⁽⁴⁰⁾.

Compulsory disappearance:

On 18 February 2004, Brigadier Ahmed Salem Ebeid, the former Yemeni Minister of Information, who had resided in Egypt since the 1994 war, disappeared. Both authorities in Egypt and Yemen denied having any information regarding his fate. The Yemeni Embassy in Cairo advised members of his family to search for him in the hospitals and police stations and publish an announcement about him in the Egyptian newspapers as "missing". However, the former Yemeni opposition member surfaced in Yemen after three months of his disappearance in Cairo. It was revealed that the Egyptian authorities apprehended Ebeid and extradited him after eight days to the Yemeni authorities in a security deal, in return for handing over a number of wanted Islamists in Yemen's custody to Egypt. It was also revealed that the Yemeni opposition member stayed three months at one of the detention centers in Sanaa under strict security. ⁽⁴¹⁾.

This type of practices indicates the prevalence of security considerations over legal considerations, especially that Brigadier Ebeid was not convicted of breaching the Egyptian law and had neither been convicted by any court in his country. Nor had he been convicted in any specific case. This practice also points to the need for immediate control on the compulsory disappearance phenomenon in Egypt, which has increased over the last one and a half decades at a regretful rate. The Egyptian human rights organizations documented tens of cases whose fate it has been pressing hard to reveal.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) documented 53 cases during the period from 1992 to 2003, the fate of 17 persons of whom was revealed ⁽⁴²⁾ The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAAP) submitted reports to the Public Prosecutor, Minister of Interior and the director of the Prisons Authority, in connection with 11 compulsory disappearance cases during the period from 1992 to 1996 . However, it did not receive any response indicating investigations were underway. ⁽⁴³⁾
The year 2002 witnessed the first court verdict for compensation against the Minister of Interior at the amount of LE 100,000 in the case of a missing Mustafa Mohammed Abdulhameed Othman, following his arrest in 1989 after the attempt on the life of ex-Minister of Interior (Zaki Bader). The Ministry of Interior was unable to reveal his fate. " At the level of citizenship, the protestation of Christian citizens surfaced before the end of the year, which started with what they described as "the kidnapping of the wife of a Christian clergyman" in El Behira Governorate and forcing her to convert to Islam.

Observers considered the State's treatment of the issue lacking in transparency despite the danger it poses to national unity and social peace, as the protestor's demands exceeded the limits of the case towards other issues related to citizenship rights.
The authorities answered the demand of the Christian citizens who gathered at the Orthodox Copts Cathedral in Abbasiya area in Cairo and the demand of Shenodha III, Pope of Alexandria's for the right of the church to debate with the Christian woman regarding the truth of her conversion to Islam. Further, the authorities complied with the Pope's demand in connection with releasing some followers of the church who were detained during the protests.