Alkarama has just solicited the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (UNSRT) regarding the continuous detention of 10 young women - most of whom are students -, since their arrest in Damietta streets on 5 May 2015. While they were peacefully demonstrating, Sara Mohamed Ramadan, Habiba Shata, Esraa Abdo Farhat, Aya Hossam Al Shehata, Fatima Ayad, Mariam Tork, Fatima Tork, Rawda Khater, Sara Hamdi Anwar and Kholod El Fallaghy, were arrested and detained incommunicado for several days during which they were tortured and then indicted. Now detained in Port-Said prison in harsh conditions, they are facing trial and could be sentenced on the basis of documents that they signed without the possibility of reading them.
On 5 May 2015, the ten women went on Damietta streets along with other individuals to peacefully protest against the authorities’ repression andthe detention of their relatives, jailed because of their political opinions. They were assaulted by several men in civilian clothes who violently beat them up. Then, they took them and other girls to Damietta second police station. The latter subsequently arrested them, solely because they were demonstrating in the streets, a right that was severely restricted by the adoption in November 2013 of law n°107 on the Right to Public Meetings, Processions and Peaceful Demonstrations.
Harsh conditions of detention
Then, they were brought to the Security Forces Camp of Damietta, which is not an official detention centre, where they remained detained incommunicado for several days. Detained with men, threatened with rape, they were deprived of food, water and sleep for days. Additionally, they all reported that during the first moments of their detention, they had been forced to stand in front of a wall with their hands up for hours and that officers would beat them up or pour cold water on them each time they would move.
While their relatives were still unaware of the girls’ whereabouts, they were brought to a public prosecutor, who interrogated them without the assistance of a lawyer. During this hearing, they were forced to sign documents that they could not read but that could contain false confessions. They were eventually charged with “participation to an illegal demonstration”, “blocking road traffic”, “incitement to violence” and “affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood” – a group considered as terrorist in Egypt and severely repressed since July 2013.
It is only on 9 May 2015 that their detentions were made official and they were transferred to Port-Said prison. Prior to their transfer however, they were brought to Port-Said hospital where a doctor performed a gynecological examination against their will, but as per Egyptian procedure. These medical examinations are often used as a mean of degrading women in Egypt, such as in the case of 22 women arrested in late December 2013 and forced to undergo virginity tests.
No medical attention and even, a heart attack
On 12 May, the women’s families were eventually allowed to see them. Informed of the torture they had been subjected to, their relatives filed complaints before the General Prosecutor of Cairo as well as before the National Human Rights Council but to no avail.
After several months of detention, the authorities eventually released three of the students arrested because they were minors but the 10 aforementioned girls remained in detention. Deprived of their right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention, the girls and their lawyers could not even attend the detention renewal hearings before the prosecutor. Additionally, they were not provided with appropriate medical attention, leading Fatima Ayad to suffer from a heart attack that she fortunately survived to. Their trial eventually started on 26 December 2015 before Damietta Criminal Court, in the absence of the defendants.
In absence of effective local remedies available to them, their relatives turned to Alkarama that sent an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (UNSRT), to ask the Egyptian authorities to guarantee the 10 women’s mental and physical health, to duly investigate their reports of torture and bring perpetrators to justice. Alkarama calls upon the authorities to submit their 11-years overdue periodic report to the UN Committee against Torture (UNCAT) and to take immediate measures to effectively end the widespread practice of torture and detention of political opponents.
For more information or an interview, please contact the media team to media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1008).