Torture Under Mubarak Regime Fueled Protests, Rights Group Says

[Joanne98]

Source: Bloomberg

Torture and police abuse under the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were one of the main causes of the protests that have engulfed the country for more than a week, Human Rights Watch said.

The 95-page report, entitled “Work on Him Until he Confesses: Impunity for Torture in Egypt,” documents dozens of cases of torture and death in custody, the New-York-based organisation said in a report released today.

“The Egyptian government’s foul record on this issue is a huge part of what is still bringing crowds onto the streets today,” Joe Stork, deputy director of the group’s Middle East and North Africa division.

Opposition movements have declared a nationwide strike and plan to stage a demonstration of a million people in Cairo today to force Mubarak out of office, following seven days of protests. The demonstrations have left more than 100 people dead and roiled international stock, bond and oil markets, with investors concerned unrest may spread to other countries in the region or lead to the closure of the Suez Canal.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-01/torture-under-mubarak-regime-fueled-protests-rights-group-says.html

[Lint Head]

1. Torture under Bush was OK as long as his wife and daughter are

for gay marriage. Gay marriage should have been legal long ago. Now all of a sudden the Bushes are saints. This is ridicules.

[LeftishBrit]

11. This is about Mubarak, not Bush; and no one is saying either is a saint!

[Overseas]

2. K&R ! //nt

[dipsydoodle]

3. "Work on Him Until he Confesses"

I came across a similar quote yesterday.

“The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.” - Dan Mitrione,United States government security advisor for the CIA in Latin America, and instructor in the art of torture teaching techniques in Uruguay during the nation's 1973-1985 military dictatorship.

http://www.towardfreedom.com/americas/2013-latin-america-impunity-in-plan-condors-shadows

Egypt obviously had good teachers. :sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

9. The US has been "doing" torture since the 1960's, at least. Mitrione taught torture in Brazil

before going to Uruguay, where he had the police sweep up people from the streets to be used as dummies for his instruction classes in torture, bringing in all his torture materials through diplomatic pouches.

He lamented he didn't always have the luxury in being able to torture them to death, but he sure got everyone's money's worth from the ones who did survive and were turned loose after being treated to a living hell at his hands in his sound-proof rooms.

Hired by the Eisenhower administration, he got in a lot of practise in the State Department before his victims/prey finally caught him and executed him without torturing him first. So damned sad, isn't it, sniff, sniff?

Thank you for that link. It illuminates the fact that the US torture programs started LONG before it was reported in Iraq, and at Guantanamo, not to mention the secret torture prisons hidden around the world.

[patricia92243]

4. We sent our prisoners there, so I assume it is ok -sarcasm

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. There are so many ironies/hypocrasies in this story that it's hard to know where to start.

By "story" I mean the Egypt revolution.

[gratuitous]

5. Absolutely absurd!

Nobody tortures, especially not us and really especially not our friends. This must be terrorist propaganda, that's what! Can we all just calm down and listen to the investors? They're getting jittery that their wholesale looting of the wealth created by labor might be interrupted.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.

[defendandprotect]

8. That Americans didn't succeed in stopping our government's torture of others ....

portends that one day those methods will be brought home to us!

[LeftishBrit]

10. A horrible regime.

I hope that the Egyptians end up with something much better. They need and deserve it.