Reports
Cairo: 29 March 2003

 Introduction           Part one             Part two           Part three

In Defense of the Right for Peaceful Demonstration

A Report by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights

On Police Transgressions on the Right to Demonstrate

Against the War

Article 2, Convention against Torture:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 54, Egyptian Constitution:  Citizens shall have the right to peaceable and unarmed private assembly, without the need for prior notice.  Security men should not attend these private meetings.  Public meetings, processions and gatherings are allowed within the limits of the law.

 The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) issued on 29 March 2003 a report on police transgressions against anti-war demonstrators.  Egyptian police far exceeded limits previously in place against demonstrators on 21 and 22 March 2003 in Tahrir Square and against those carrying out sit-ins inside the lawyers' syndicate.  Police and state security forces arrested hundreds of demonstrators during and after the demonstrations and detained them at several police stations and central security camps.  While tens saw prosecutors, others were simply released; thirty-four had to pay bail in order to be released. 

EOHR observed a number of police violations.  According to victim accounts, tactics varied from using violence to curb demonstrations as a whole to torturing and humiliating individual demonstrators.  Constitutional violations also peppered the investigation process.  This report tackles a number of violations found in the field survey and follows up on differing investigations and victim testimonies.  It also includes a list of names of those on provision detention.

EOHR also uses this report to reiterate its call for the immediate release of those detained.  It also calls for both a serious investigation into the litany of police violations against demonstrators and a guarantee of the rights to peaceful assembly, opinion and expression.  We also wish to take this opportunity to issue a strong critique against investigations begun against the accused, all of which have been done under an unconstitutional law (Law number 10 of 1914).  We wish to call for the following changes: to substitute the aforementioned law with one that would provide for the right to peacefully assemble, to end to the state of emergency and to guarantee the freedom of organizations, parties and syndicates.