Investigations refute false claims made in HRW 2017 torture report: Egypt prosecution
Ahram Online, , Wednesday 30 Jan 2019


Egypt's general prosecution has issued a statement dismissing a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released in September 2017 on alleged torture in the country, saying that it contained false claims about the torture of citizens accused in terrorism-related cases.

The prosecution said that after investigating the claims made in the report, it has concluded that its claims are unfounded and asserted that the international organisation should aim to be accurate in its reports on Egypt.

The prosecution said that investigations revealed that HRW based its report on unverified information published on the internet.

The HRW report said that prosecutors and investigating officers forced confessions from suspects by using torture.

The prosecutor's office said that the HRW report mentioned nine alleged torture cases, citing anonymous sources without providing any information on the nature of the cases the suspects were charged in.

"The organisation [HRW] referred to the citizens mentioned in its report by pseudonyms, which made them difficult to identify," the statement said.

The prosecution said that investigations revealed that the citizens mentioned in the report lived in five different governorates: one in Cairo, two in Giza, two in Alexandria and three in Beheira.

The statement said that following investigations, the prosecution determined that these citizens were afforded all their rights as stipulated by law, and that the prosecutors who interrogated them confirmed they did not torture or physically abuse the suspects during interrogations.

Medical and forensic reports also showed that the suspects mentioned in the report were not subjected to any kind of torture or physical abuse.

The prosecution also said that the suspects' defence lawyers made no claims that their clients were subjected to torture or abuse.

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