Torture and Silence: This Year's Arab Spring?

May 08, 2006

Torture and Silence: This Year's Arab Spring?
Posted by Shadi Hamid

You perhaps doubted claims of Arab autocracy’s renewed vigor? Well then, there is this from The Arabist:

“You bitches. You sons of bitches. This is how it is going to be from now on if you do not behave and know your limits. If you do not behave you’ll have the bottom of my old shoes all over you." These and more were the exact words of Sami Sedhom, Assistant to the Egyptian Minister of Interior, Habib el Adly.

There is torture, Abu-Ghraib style. There is also torture, Egyptian style. Anyone with politically active friends in Egypt has heard the horror stories. More:

Friends of two of the detainees received phone calls from their mobile phones describing how they were being tortured. “We are screwing them right now” were the exact words, raising fears that our colleagues may be subject to the well known brutality of Egyptian police.

Let me just note, once again, that Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt is one of America’s closest allies in the region. More importantly, it receives more than 2 billion dollars of US economic and military aid (in other words, our tax dollars). I spoke over the weekend with a State Department official, who will remain unnamed, about the deteriorating situation in Egypt. He assured me that they have made clear to Cairo their concern over such human rights abuses. But he wondered aloud why some people exaggerate the US government’s ability to pressure other governments to do what we want them to do. So, let me get this straight - you can invade a country, occupy it for a couple years, and spend endless billions in the process, but you can’t get your good old boy Mubarak to respect even the most minimum and basic of human rights standards?

May 08, 2006 at 10:35 AM in Democracy, Middle East | Permalink

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May 08, 2006