Video issued from Isis stronghold in Syria is rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis who oppose its truces with Israel
Members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas movement, take part in a military march in Gaza City on Monday. Photograph: Wissam Nassar/Xinhua Press/Corbis
Islamic State insurgents have threatened to turn the Gaza Strip into another of their Middle East fiefdoms, accusing Hamas, the organisation that rules the Palestinian territory, of being insufficiently stringent about religious enforcement.
The video statement, issued from an Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was a rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis in Gaza who oppose its truces with Israel and reconciliation with the US-backed rival Palestinian faction Fatah.
“We will uproot the state of the Jews [Israel] and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be overrun by our creeping multitudes,” said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the “tyrants of Hamas”.
“The rule of sharia [Islamic law] will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza,” he said, referring to Islamic State advances in Syria, including in a Damascus district founded by Palestinian refugees.
Islamic State has also taken over swaths of Iraq and has claimed attacks in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.
Hamas is an Islamist movement that shares the jihadis’ hostility to Israel but not their quest for a global religious war, defining itself more within the framework of Palestinian nationalism.
Deemed a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and viewed by neighbouring Arab power Egypt as a regional security threat, Hamas’s struggle against Islamic State-linked jihadis has not won sympathy abroad.
Israel’s intelligence minister, Israel Katz, accused Hamas on Tuesday of partnering with Islamic State affiliates in the Egyptian Sinai – a charge long denied by the Palestinian group.
“There is cooperation between them in the realm of weapons smuggling and terrorist attacks. The Egyptians know this, and the Saudis,” Katz told a Tel Aviv conference organised by the Israel Defense journal.
“At the same time, within Gaza, Isis [Islamic State] has been flouting Hamas. But they have common cause against the Jews, in Israel or abroad.”
The most dangerous and troubling of the terror attacks in the past week in Tunisia Kuwait, France, Egypt and Yemen are probably the Kuwaiti and Egyptian attacks.
The bombing of a Shiite mosque in Kuwait City by a young Saudi man and the assassination in Cairo of the Egyptian public prosecutor showed the ease with which ordinary citizens in those countries can move about, cross borders and kill at will. They also affirmed that heavy security and spreading the wealth by munificent governments are unlikely to check the spread of the terrible new scourge of violence by ISIS and others.
Equally troubling is the simplistic response of British Prime Minister David Cameron after 30 British citizens were killed in the Tunisia attack, signaling a continuing lack of appreciation among leading Western governments of the full spectrum of reasons why ordinary young men suddenly turn into vicious killers. This is mirrored in the policies of other Western powers such as the United States and France. They cannot seem to grasp the connection between the time and effort their leaders put into selling or giving arms to Arab autocrats and the parallel continued expansion of anti-Western militancy by militant criminals such as those who carried out the recent attacks.
As long as Western and Arab power structures refuse to delve fully into the long but clear causal cycle of political and socio-economic factors that transform ordinary young men into global terrorists – including some of the policies of those same Arab and Western powers – then we are all destined to suffer more and more attacks in the years ahead.
This reality is also likely to perpetuate the trend we have witnessed in the past two decades or so: the steady retreat of the reach, relevance and legitimacy of central governments across much of the Arab world. Government authority has been replaced by a range of other organizing forces – religion, tribalism, ethnicity, civil society, private wealth and others.
So, ungoverned areas of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and small bits and pieces of Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain and Sudan are not wild aberrations of a stable Arab status quo. Rather, they point to the expected new normal where sustained indigenous autocracy, expanding domestic socio-economic distress and runaway Western militarism corrode the foundations of existing states and expose the frailty of those foundations that had been camouflaged for half a century.
The Kuwait and Cairo attacks are especially troubling for several reasons. The man who bombed the mosque in Kuwait has been identified as Fahd Suliman Abdel-Mohsen al-Qabaa, a Saudi in his early 20s who flew to Kuwait via a connection in Bahrain last Friday morning. The real worry is multifaceted: He was a Saudi national, was not on anybody’s watch list as a potential terrorist, moved around the Gulf region at will, entered the mosque easily, and deliberately targeted both the Shiite Kuwaitis in the mosque and the modern legacy of Shiite-Sunni coexistence that has always been evident in Kuwait.
The history of terror actions and counterterrorism in Saudi Arabiaover the past 35 years, since that homegrown attack on the Great Mosque in Mecca, includes waves of attacks by terrorists and retaliatory massive moves by the state to contain and eliminate this threat. The Kuwait attack should set off major alarm bells about the continued radicalization and sectarian extremism of youth in some Gulf countries, and the need to understand more precisely why this happens.
This is especially perplexing in wealthy states that have recently suffered anti-Shiite mosque bombings such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where state policies provide for citizens’ needs and open many opportunities for a good life.
Similarly, the assassination of the public prosecutor in Cairo, on the eve of the second anniversary of the overthrow of former elected President Mohammad Morsi, suggests that the tough anti-terror measures introduced by the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his year in office have not adequately contained political violence in the country. The combination of military and security measures in an already squeezed political system that leaves little room for voices other than those in or near the ruling elite, while economic stress continues to pervade most Egyptian households, bodes badly for Egypt. Indeed, it would do so for any state that applies a similar approach to quelling terrorist attacks.
The timing, location and target of the Cairo killing should help focus state attention on finding a better way, through inclusive democracy and an expanding economy that is not skewed to the military, to safeguard Egypt and its people.
This also requires identifying honestly the factors that drive ordinary citizens into the arms of killers. This same challenge has stumped Arab and Western authorities for decades, though any Arab teenager could explain in five minutes what ails them and pushes them into committing criminal acts.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR. He can be followed on Twitter @RamiKhouri.
Dozens were killed when several army positions in Sinai came under coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State Wednesday as Egypt marks the anniversary of President Sisi's coup.
At least 80 people were killed when militants staged simultaneous attacks, including a suicide car bombing, on army checkpoints in northern Sinai on Wednesday.
In a statement later on Wednesday, IS-affiliated Welayat Sinaa claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that its militants targeted 15 military checkpoints in Shiekh Zweid. The statement describes the attack as "heroic", as militants engage in on-going fighting with the Egyptian Army.
Eyewitnesses told Al-Araby al-Jadeed's reporter in Egypt that there is on-going clashes around Sheikh Zweid Police Station and other points near Rafah, North Sinai. Militants attacked the station with RPGs and other heavy arms.
An eyewitness has told the BBC that militants appear to have taken control of Sheikh Zweid & ambulances cannot get into the town.
Deputy of Ministry of Health in North Sinai, Dr. Tarek Khater, announced that the total death toll of civilians and soldiers reached 42, with 36 others injured.
However, a medical source has told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the number of casualties was likely to be around 80.
Government officials say Wednesday's attack is the largest attack to be carried out since the announcement of "Sinai emirate" by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an extremist group linked to the Islamic State (IS).
Egyptian officials also confirmed that the attackers are holding several soldiers captive, and that they have seized several armoured vehicles.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. A formal Egyptian government statement is yet to be issued.
Sources told Al-Jazeera that fighters took over two tanks at one of the checkpoints.
Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper was reporting that that fighters were on top of buildings, electricity had been cut and ambulances were unable to reach the injured.
The attacks come just two days after the assassination in Cairo of the country's top prosecutor. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi vowed on Tuesday to step up a two-year crackdown on militants.
Today's attacks mark the second anniversary of Sisi's coup. Since then, militants in northern Sinai have stepped up their attacks.
While previous attack were mostly suicide attacks, militants this time have engaged in open confrontation with the Egyptian army. Clashes are on-going in Sheikh Zweid and other points in North Sinai.
In the meantime, Israel has closed down its Rafah border crossings with Egypt.
شن تنظيم ولاية سيناء سلسلة هجمات وتفجيرات في عدد من المناطق شمال سيناء كان أبرزها في مدينتي رفح والشيخ زويد أودت بحياة عشرات الجنود وسط أنباء عن انتشار المسلحين بالشواع وأسر جنود، واستعمالهم أسلحة نوعية بمواجهة الجيش.
ونقلت وسائل إعلام -بينها وكالتا رويترز وأسوشيتد برس- عن مصادر أمنية وطبية، إفادتها بمقتل أكثر من ثلاثين جنديا وإصابة أكثر من أربعين بالهجمات، وبينها هجوم بسيارة مفخخة. لكن صحيفة الشروق المصرية أوردت أن حصيلة الضحايا بلغت 64 قتيلا من الجيش والشرطة.
كما أفادت صحيفة الأهرام العمومية على موقعها الإلكتروني بالإنجليزية "أن عشرين شخصا قتلوا على الأقل" في المعارك الدائرة هناك. بدوره أكد المتحدث العسكري مقتل عشرة جنود و22 بين السبعين ممن سماهم الإرهابيين الذين هاجموا كمائن للجيش.
وقال مراسل الجزيرة نت إن القتلى والجرحى الذين وصلوا لمستشفى العريش، نقلوا بواسطة الأهالي لعدم قدرة سيارات الإسعاف على الوصول إلى جنوب الشيخ زويد ورفح بسبب قطع الطريق من قبل المسلحين.
وقالت مصادر للجزيرة إن مسلحين من تنظيم ولاية سيناء انتشروا في شوارع مدينة الشيخ زويد، كما تحدثت أنباء عن استيلائهم على دبابات وآليات عسكرية. وذكر شهود عيان أن الجيش أطلق قذائف عشوائيا على بعض الشوارع أسفرت عن إصابات بين المدنيين. سلاح ثقيل وقال الشهود إن ما بين مائتين و250 مسلحا نفذوا الهجمات واشتبكوا مع قوات الجيش بالسلاح الثقيل واستعملوا أسلحة نوعية بينها صواريخ، كما حاصروا قسم شرطة العريش، مشيرين إلى سماع دوي انفجارات.
عناصر من ولاية سيناء يطلقون النار على الأمن حسب فيديو وزعه التنظيم سابقا(الجزيرة)
وأضاف
الشهود أن المسلحين زرعوا عبوات ناسفة منعا لوصول التعزيزات الأمنية داخل منطقة الاشتباك جنوب الشيخ زويد وأطراف المدينة وأنهم يهاجمون دبابات كانت في طريقها لمساندة قوات الجيش بالشيخ زويد.
وفي بيان نشره على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي، قال تنظيم "ولاية سيناء" -الذي بايع تنظيم الدولة الإسلامية- إن "هجماته اليوم استهدفت أكثر من 15 موقعا أمنيا وعسكريا" بينها نادي الضباط وهي حاليا تحت الحصار، فيما تحدثت مصادر أمنية عن أسر جنود بالشيخ زويد، لكن هذه الأنباء لا تزال غير مؤكدة لصعوبة الاتصال بمنطقة الاشتباكات.
اشتباكات مستمرة وقال مسؤول لوكالة الصحافة الفرنسية إن الهجوم الأول استهدف حاجز أبو رفاعي جنوب الشيخ زويد شرق العريش، مضيفا أن "هجمات متزامنة أخرى ضربت أربعة حواجز للجيش في المنطقة وأن الاشتباكات لا تزال دائرة. وأوضحت مصادر أمنية أن الهجمات تمت باستخدام "سيارة مفخخة وقذائف هاون وقذائف "آر بي جي" مشيرة إلى أن "الهجمات أدت لتدمير كبير للغاية في حاجزي أبو رفاعي وصدر أبو حجاج في الشيخ زويد".
وعلى خلفية الهجمات، أعلن الجيش المصري أنه أغلق مدينة رفح وعزز قواته في المنطقة الحدودية، كما أغلقت إسرائيل المعابر الحدودية مع مصر، حسب مراسل الجزيرة.
من جهته قال رئيس الوزراء المصري إبراهيم محلب نحن في حالة حرب وسنرفع للرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي قوانين لمحاربة الإرهاب.
وجاءت هذه الهجمات بعد يومين من اغتيال النائب العام المصري هشام بركات بسيارة مفخخة استهدفت موكبه في حي مصر الجديدة شرقي القاهرة.
تل أبيب - (رويترز) – قال مسؤول بوزارة الدفاع الإسرائيلية إن الرئيس السوري بشار الاسد لا يسيطر الا على خمس سوريا وقد ينتهي به الأمر بأن يكون مسؤولا عن بقايا دولة تهيمن عليها الأقلية العلوية التي ينتمي لها.
وإسرائيل وسوريا خصمان قديمان إلا أن تصريحات عاموس جلعاد المستشار الاستراتيجي لوزير الدفاع موشي يعلون تعكس قلق دول المنطقة من أن سوريا تشهد تقسيما بحكم الأمر الواقع بعد أربعة أعوام من الحرب الأهلية.
وقال جلعاد في مؤتمر نظمته مجلة إيزرائيل ديفينس الاثنين “سوريا انتهت. سوريا تموت. وسيعلن موعد الجنازة في الوقت المناسب. بشار الأسد هذا ستذكره كتب التاريخ على أنه الرجل الذي أضاع سوريا.”
وأضاف “حتى الآن خسر 75 في المئة من سوريا… من الناحية العملية هو يحكم 20 بالمئة فقط من سوريا. ومستقبله لو كان يمكنني التكهن به ينكمش طول الوقت. وربما سيصبح رئيسا ‘لعلويستان‘.”
ومنذ مارس آذار خسر الأسد أراضي في شمال غرب وجنوب ووسط سوريا لصالح عدد من الجماعات بينها تنظيم الدولة الإسلامية وجبهة النصرة المرتبطة بتنظيم القاعدة ومقاتلون معارضون يتبنون رؤية أكثر اعتدالا لمستقبل سوريا.
ويعتقد كثير من المحللين إن القوات السورية الحكومية والقوات المتحالفة معها تركز جهودها على تعزيز السيطرة على منطقة في غرب سوريا تمتد شمالا من دمشق مرورا بحمص وحماة إلى ساحل البحر المتوسط بما في ذلك المناطق العلوية.
ولكن الحكومة السورية ما زالت تقاتل للحفاظ على مواقع في أجزاء أخرى في البلاد بينها مدينتا الحسكة والقامشلي في شمال شرق البلاد ومدينة دير الزور في الشرق ودرعا في الجنوب وحلب في الشمال.
وسعت إسرائيل لأن تبقى بعيدة عما يحدث في سوريا خشية أن يطيح بالأسد إسلاميون متشددون أكثر عداء لها. لكن إسرائيل قدمت أيضا إمدادات إغاثة لمقاتلي المعارضة الذين يشتبكون مع قوات الأسد.
Abdel Fatah al-Sisi – speaking at funeral of assassinated lead prosecutor – indicates he will cut the lengthy appeals process for those on death row The Guardian Link
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, appears poised to further crack down on dissent after announcing he would fast-track the judicial process in the aftermath of the assassination of the country’s lead prosecutor.
On Tuesday, Sisi promised new laws that will allow Egyptian courts to speed up hearings, and appeared to suggest that the appeals process would be circumvented to guarantee the execution of those on death row.
Speaking at the funeral of Hisham Barakat, the state prosecutor killed in a car bomb on Monday, Sisi said: “The arm of justice is chained by the law. We’re not going to wait for this. We’re going to amend the law to allow us to implement justice as soon as possible.”
Repeating the words “the law, the law”, Sisi added: “If there is a death sentence, a death sentence shall be enforced.” According to the current process, a death sentence can only be enforced after lengthy appeals. But as Egypt has been without a sitting parliament for two years, Sisi – as the country’s sole elected official – can issue laws by decree. As a result, he may technically be able to change the speed at which executions can be completed. Legal experts believe he is already enacting authoritarian laws at a rate not seen in Egypt for 60 years.
The investigation into Barakat’s death has yet to be completed. But by referring to the subject of executions, Sisi appeared to imply that the assassination was carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders – including ex-president Mohamed Morsi – are on death rowpending appeal. Egypt’s public relations arm has already blamed the Brotherhood by name.
But while Barakat was one of the main architects of the crackdown on the Brotherhood – pursuing controversial cases in which thousands of alleged members were arrested, and hundreds sentenced to death in mass trials that lasted just minutes – the group itself has denied responsibility for his death. Analysts believe the murder instead bears the hallmarks of an Isis affiliate in Egypt, which carried out a similar assassination attempt on Egypt’s then interior minister in 2013.
Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian government not to use Barakat’s death “as a pretext for trampling upon human rights”. But Sisi’s speech, as well as wider local reaction, suggest the call may fall on deaf ears. Following Barakat’s death, one of the most popular slogans on Egyptian social media was: “Execute the Brotherhood.”
In a separate development on Tuesday, the Cairo correspondent for the leading Spanish newspaper, El Pais, revealed he had fled from Egypt after being warned by his embassy that he risked arrest. At least 18 journalists are currently behind bars in Egypt, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
"Egypt’s public prosecutor has been killed in a bomb attack in Cairo. Hisham Barakat died in hospital Monday after a remote bomb detonated next to his car outside his home as he drove to work. Eight others were also hurt in the blast. Barakat became a target of militants after he sent thousands of Islamists to trial following the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. We speak with Cairo-based Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous...."
"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a full investigation after Saudi coalition airstrikes hit a U.N. compound in Yemen. A guard was injured when the office of the U.N. Development Programme in the southern city of Aden was hit Sunday. The United Nations has warned Yemen is one step away from famine as a humanitarian crisis intensifies. We discuss the latest with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who reported recently from Yemen....."
Did you notice that at the beginning of the Syrian revolution, what bothered Bashar Al-Assad's regime the most was the people's demand for freedom? We saw how the security forces harassed the protesters and revelled in their brutal means of torturing them, saying, "You want freedom? Take it!" (While harassing them, of course.) The regime, along with its allies and those who wanted to abort the revolution, racked their brains to think of ways to get revenge on the rebels, and finally said, "We've got it! We know how to make the rebellious nation yearn for the good old days of tyranny and curse the day they called for freedom. Bring them extremist groups that make the regime seem 'democratic' in comparison to these groups. We will allow the groups to interfere in everything, even their clothes, drink, food and cigarettes. Then they will say, 'We miss the days of the intelligence services; at least they allowed us to smoke and wear what we want, eat, drink and listen to whatever we like'."
You must not underestimate these simple freedoms. Imagine you are walking down the street and someone comes up to you, hits you, and demands that you put out your cigarette immediately, or prevents you from listening to certain music. How would you feel, if you couldn't even look at them, let alone yell at them?
What makes tyrants more popular than some Islamist extremists is that some of the societies in which the people rebelled are religious, sectarian and ethnic mosaics, and some have a large sectarian population. Such a society is unwilling to be dictated to by religion and will prefer the military tyrant over a "Caliphate". Even regular Muslims who have become accustomed to an open social life would not accept a strict religious government. I have heard many Syrian Muslims say that, after the revolution, they would immediately take up arms in order to free the country from any extremist religious group; that is, they would not revolt against a military regime in order to replace it with an extremist religious government.
Isn't it natural for ordinary people to ask themselves, after realising that the extremist groups hijacked the revolutions, where these groups came from? Why haven't we seen them before the revolutions? Where did they get their weapons? How did they infiltrate and control the scene so quickly and strongly? Why have the Syrian regime-controlled areas only fallen when faced by specific Islamist groups? Why did the original revolutionary forces that wanted to build a modern democratic system to protect the people's basic rights and freedoms disappear? These are all legitimate questions. Don't revolutions usually move a nation forward rather than backwards? Didn't the nations revolt in order to move from a miserable reality to a bright future? Have extremist groups been sent to these people to get revenge on them and push them hundreds of years backwards? Are the extremist groups who are controlling things at the moment trying to push the nations backwards? Aren't they threatening to interfere in their most basic freedoms? Who benefits from the actions of these groups and their tyranny? Wouldn't it be the tyrants whose oppression and tyranny drove the nations to revolt against them? Isn't Bashar Al-Assad, his allies and those like him rubbing their hands together in glee when they watch these groups rival them in their oppression and tyranny? The Syrian regime and its supporters curse ISIS during the day and thank them at night because they have provided a great outlet for them.
I would like to pose this question to the groups who want to take the revolutionary nations back to the Dark Ages: Don't you think that by doing so, you are doing a big favour for the enemies of the revolutions and the tyrants who are facing popular revolutions? The people revolted to rid themselves of unjust tyrants, not to fall into the hands of even worse oppressors who want to drive the people back into the depths of history. Either you do not know the basics of revolutions and that they are supposed to take a jump forward, rather than going backwards, or you have been created by tyrants and their supporters in order to make the people say, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." Isn't it the right of the people to believe that the dictatorships faced with revolutions are working with their allies in order to create groups that call for going backwards, hence pushing the people to stop calling for their revolutionary demands and decide to stay the way they are rather than to go back in the past?
There is no doubt that some will say what's wrong with going hundreds of years back? Wasn't everything better in the good old days? Yes, we were certainly better and stronger, but, frankly, this is a naïve question. Who said that these extremist groups would take us back to Islam's Golden Age? If we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that these groups actually aimed to do so, would the global superpowers allow this? It is true that many applauded some of the extremist groups in Syria and other areas; not because they wanted these groups to replace the regime, but because they wanted to spite the regime and get revenge on it. However, they did not know that these groups were actually indirectly boosting the image of the regime both domestically and internationally.
Also, where have these extremist groups triumphed and then proceeded to establish a state better than the existing one? In Afghanistan? Somalia? Algeria? Libya? Or have they been too busy fighting one another after the project they set out to achieve was finished? Look at how they are eliminating each other in Syria and elsewhere. Isn't it the Islamic groups who always recite the Quranic verse, "Do not dispute and [thus] lose courage and [then] your strength would depart", but then fight the most amongst themselves, especially during and after the revolutions? Some may say that the Egyptian revolution was not killed by the Islamist extremists, and although this is true, the counter-revolution was wildly successful in exploiting the Islamist "bogeyman" to contain the people.
The extremist groups achieved two of the goals of the enemies of revolution, both domestically and abroad. It restored some of the regimes that had fallen, and prolonged the life of the Syrian regime and others after these groups were used by foreign parties and their spies in the country to derail the revolutions. The groups were also used to redraw the regional map. ISIS will enter an area, and America and Iran will send its planes and groups to fight the organisation on the ground, then ISIS will leave the area and it will be replaced by another group. This is what the Kurds are doing in the north as well as the Iranian groups in Iraq. It is under this pretext that people are displaced and the areas are re-divided clearly according to American and Iranian instructions. Even if we believe that these groups are completely independent, that they do not serve anyone and that they have triumphed and replaced the fallen regimes, aren't the people right to ask: Did we revolt to replace a stroke with cancer, or injustice with darkness?
Translated from Al-Sharq newspaper, 28 June, 2015.
A continuing onslaught against young activists by the Egyptian authorities is a blatant attempt to crush the spirit of the country’s bravest and brightest young minds, and nip in the bud any future threat to their rule, said Amnesty International in a new briefing published today.
Generation Jail: Egypt’s youth go from protest to prison focuses on the cases of 14 young people who are among thousands who have been arbitrarily arrested, detained and jailed in Egypt over the past two years in connection with protests. The briefing shows that the country has reverted fully to being a police state.
“Two years after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, mass protests have been replaced by mass arrests. By relentlessly targeting Egypt’s youth activists, the authorities are crushing an entire generation’s hopes for a brighter future,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
“After the 2011 uprising, Egypt’s youth were lauded as a beacon of hope by the country’s military leaders and its international partners alike. It was their idealism and commitment to calls for ‘bread, freedom and social justice’ that proved a crucial driving force for change. Yet, today, many of these young activists are languishing behind bars, providing every indication that Egypt has regressed into a state of all-out repression.”
By relentlessly targeting Egypt’s youth activists, the authorities are crushing an entire generation’s hopes for a brighter future
Amnesty International again strongly denounced yesterday’s killing of Public Prosecutor Hisham Barakat in a bombing in Cairo, which it called "a despicable, cowardly and cold-blooded act of murder". If the rule of law is to prevail in Egypt, judges and prosecutors must be free to do their job without the threat of violence.
The organization has urged the authorities not to respond to the killing with further repression targeting peaceful protesters and activists, expressing concern over the numbers now held as part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent.
More than a year after he came to power, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government has shown no sign of easing its repressive rule. The crackdown has seen more than 41,000 people arrested, charged or indicted with a criminal offence, or sentenced after unfair trials, according to the last available estimates by Egyptian human rights activists.
“The scale of the crackdown is overwhelming. The Egyptian authorities’ have shown that they will stop at nothing in their attempts to crush all challenges to their authority,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
“Those behind bars range from internationally lauded youth movement leaders, to human rights defenders, to students arrested for wearing T-shirts with anti-torture slogans.”
The Protest Law, passed in November 2013, enables the authorities to arrest and prosecute peaceful demonstrators on a whim, and criminalizes the very act of 10 or more people taking to the streets without prior authorization. It also grants the security forces free reign to use excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters.
“The Protest Law has become a fast-track to prison for peaceful demonstrators, who are being treated like criminals. It must be scrapped immediately,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
The Protest Law has become a fast-track to prison for peaceful demonstrators, who are being treated like criminals. It must be scrapped immediately
A crackdown that began with the arrests of Mohamed Morsi and his supporters, including senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, in July 2013 has rapidly expanded to encompass the whole of Egypt’s political spectrum.
Among the youths who have found themselves arbitrarily imprisoned are prominent activists Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel from the “6 April Youth Movement”, Ahmed Douma a well-known blogger and protester, as well as Alaa Abd El Fattah, a blogger and a vocal critic of the authorities who spent time in prison under Hosni Mubarak as well as the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
They also include prominent human rights defenders Yara Sallam and Mahienour El-Massry.
They join those detained for protesting against the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, such as Irish national Ibrahim Halawa, or university students Abrar Al-Anany, Menatalla Moustafa and teacher Yousra Elkhateeb.
All have been imprisoned for defying Egypt’s draconian Protest Law, or other legislation that arbitrarily restricts the right to freedomof peaceful assembly.
A new wave of arrests in mid-2015 saw at least 160 people detained in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance according to the Egyptian activist group Freedom For the Brave. The Muslim Brotherhood movement separately reported new arrests of its members.
The Egyptian authorities have often sought to justify their heavy handed tactics by saying they are maintaining stability and security. While some demonstrators have used violence during protests, the response of the security forces has routinely been disproportionate.
Many of those detained have found themselves hauled before courts on trumped-up or politically motivated charges, or sentenced during mass trials in which hundreds have been convicted based on little or no evidence, or solely on the basis of testimonies from the security forces or investigations by National Security.
Others have been detained for prolonged periods without charge or trial. They include student Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, who was just 18 years old while he was arrested on his way home from a protest because of the slogan on his T-shirt.
According to his family and lawyers he was tortured to “confess” to terrorism related activities. He spent his 19th birthday in prison and has now spent more than 500 days without charge or trial.
The thousands of protesters convicted on spurious charges or because of laws that arbitrarily restrict freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, stand in stark contrast to the paltry number of security forces prosecuted for human rights violations since January 2011. Not a single member of the security forces has faced criminal charges over the deaths of hundreds of Morsi supporters at Rabaa Adawiya and al-Nadha Squares on 14 August 2013.
Amnesty International is warning Egypt’s international partners not to sacrifice human rights in their talks with the authorities.
The leaders of influential EU countries, including France, Italy and Germany, have all sat down with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi while his administration has been putting thousands of its political opponents behind bars. And there is no indication that stopping gross human rights violations in Egypt was on the agenda during these meetings.
The UK has also invited President al-Sisi for talks, with a spokesperson confirming the news just a day after a court sentenced ousted President Mohamed Morsi to death following an unfair trial.
The US government announced in March that it was lifting a freeze on arms transfers to Egypt and would also offer continued military and security assistance to the country’s army and security forces.
“The gross hypocrisy of Egypt’s partners has been laid bare in a race for lucrative business deals, political influence and intelligence, as well as new sales and transfers of policing equipment that could facilitate human rights violations,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
“World leaders are breaking the pledges they made to stand by Egypt’s young people when Mubarak fell in February 2011. Egypt is jailing peaceful activists while the international community looks the other away. There’s silence from states, silence from world leaders and silence in the UN Human Rights Council.”
The gross hypocrisy of Egypt’s partners has been laid bare in a race for lucrative business deals, political influence and intelligence, as well as new sales and transfers of policing equipment that could facilitate human rights violations
The authorities have justified the crackdown by pointing to a rise in political violence. Egypt is facing attacks from armed groups, which the authorities have said have led to the deaths of hundreds of members of the security forces, particularly in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, as well as a number of civilians. Amnesty International unreservedly condemns attacks on civilians. However, the organization urges the Egyptian authorities not to use such threats as a pretext for trampling upon human rights.
RPGs and other heavy arms.
