Egypt closes only center for treatment and documentation of torture

Egyptian officials ordered the El Nadeem center closed for breaching unspecified health ministry regulations. El Nadeem is the last center remaining in Egypt that documents and treats alleged torture victims.

Aida Seif Al-Dawia, the director of the Cairo-based center claimed the closure order was politically motivated. Rights groups have been critical of Egypt's crackdown on dissent. Recently, there has been a surge of allegations of torture by officials. The El Nadeem center has been operating since 1993. It provides support and counseling for victims of torture.

The group has been given until Monday to close. The director has vowed to defy the order and said the center will continue its work unless the staff were arrested. Amnesty International said the closing of the center was "an extension of the ongoing crackdown on human rights activists in Egypt." The group noted the center was a lifeline for hundreds of torture victims and for families of people subject to enforced disappearances. Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty for the Middle East and North Africa said: “This looks to us like a barefaced attempt to shut down an organization which has been a bastion for human rights and a thorn in the side of the authorities for more than 20 years.”

Oria Guerin of the BBC said the closure comes when enforced disappearances are rising, as are allegations of torture by police and intelligence officers. Two weeks ago, the mutilated corpse of an Italian student, Guilio Regini, was found by a roadside following allegations he had been kidnapped by security services. The security services have denied the allegations. Ever since the overthrow of the elected Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi in 2013, there have been numerous human rights violations by the new Egyptian President Abduul al-Sisi. Sisi was army chief when he led a coup against Morsi after large demonstrations against him. The Muslim Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organization by the military-backed government. Since then, there have been several mass trials with hundreds sentenced to death and demonstrations were broken up with hundreds of protesters being killed. Western countries continue to support Egypt and provide military assistance, especially the United States. Al-Sisi is a strong supporter of Khalifa Haftar, the commander in chief of the Libyan National Army(LNA) in neighboring Libya. The UN envoy in Libya, Martin Kobler, the head of the Presidency Council of the GNA, Faiez Serraj, and Haftar himself have met with al-Sisi, showing that he is a key played in events in Libya.

Director, al-Dawia said two policemen came to the center on Wednesday with an order from the Health Ministry to close the center. She said: “The decision did not give any reasons. We managed to persuade them to postpone the closure until we went to the Health Ministry next Monday to understand the reasons, Unless they arrest us all, we will continue in our work as long as we remain out of prison. It would be stupid if they shut down the center because we provide a service that no one else provides to the underprivileged.”

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Health claimed that the center engaged in "activities other than the activity allowed in its permit" but did not say what they were.The UN Human Rights Council has many times expressed concern of the methods used by Egyptian security forces and their killing of anti-government protesters.

Egypt has been closing down more and more NGO organizations and their facilities. Critics say the moves have rolled back the freedoms won after the government of Hosni Mubarak was overthrown during the Arab Spring in 2011. In spite of evidence to the contrary Egyptian authorities simply deny that they round up people and detain them in secret detention centers where they are subject to torture. The closure of the Nadeem center is just another move to prevent any evidence against the government and opposition to their methods.

UN asks U.S. to provide justification for increased drone attacks

Christof Heyns a UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution issued a report that has called on the U.S.to justify its increasing use of drones in attacks. Heyns claims that the attacks take some innocent lives and may violate international law.

Both the U.S. military and the CIA have used drones in a number of countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Heyns says that the U.S. should clarify the legal basis for these attacks. The U.S. has so far refused to do so. In fact the practice has been to simply leak information that the government thinks will be politically positive but when the ACLU tried to get information through the Freedom of Information Act the courts have said that even admitting or denying the existence of the programs would be against national security interests. The legal nonsense continues because it is in the interest of the U.S. government.

Heyns particularly wanted to know the legal basis for killing suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders rather than attempting to capture them. The UN Human Rights Council will be debating the issue in Geneva.

Heyns report notes:"The government should clarify the procedures in place to ensure that any targeted killing complies with international humanitarian law and human rights and indicate the measures or strategies applied to prevent casualties, as well as the measures in place to provide prompt, thorough, effective and independent public investigation of alleged violations," Some of this information was also requested by the ACLU so far without any success.

Heyns noted that all studies indicate that the use of drones has dramatically escalated. The escalation has happened since Obama took office. The Pakistan Human Rights Commission claims that 957 people were killed by drones in Pakistan in 2010 alone.About 20 per cent of those killed in drone attacks are estimated to be civilians. U.S. figures are almost invariably much lower. Similar questions were raised in as 2009 report by Philip Alston to which Washington failed to respond.

Pakistan''s Ambassador to the UN Zamir Akram spoke at the opening session of the UN human rights group. He said that the Pakistani government considers the use of drones by the U.S. in the Tribal Areas is illegal, counter productive and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. So why does Pakistan not shoot them down? The U.S. has ignored the Pakistani parliament's demand the attacks stop. I expect that Pakistani politicians as in other countries have lots of hot air for domestic consumption. For more see this article.

Israel prevents UN Human Rights Council from probe into West Bank settlements

The UN Human Rights Council launched an investigation last week into Jewish settlements in the West Bank However the Israelis have broken off all relations with the Council. As a result a fact finding team will not be allowed to enter the territory or do any investigating.

An Israeli official said:"We are not working with them anymore," "We had been participating in meetings, discussions, arranging visits to Israel. All that is over." The U.S. voted against the investigation the only country to do so.

Israel claims that the UN group is hypocritical and biased against Israel. No doubt any group that considers the settlements illegal will be biased in Israel's view. An official complained:"They systematically and serially make all kinds of decisions and condemnations against Israel without even symbolically considering our positions," However, the official said that Israel would continue to cooperate with other UN bodies.

The UN Human Rights Council has objected to Israeli construction of new housing units for settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The group said that these actions undermine the peace process. The settlements are considered illegal by the International Court of Justice. However Israel is expanding them giving them more bargaining chips if and when the peace process ever begins again. For more see this article.

UN report: 60 civilians killed in Libya NATO air strikes

A report released by the UN Human Rights Council concludes that NATO air strikes killed 60 civilians and wounded 55. NATO had insisted it had not killed or wounded a single civilian and that every attack was against a legitimate military target. The full article can be found here. I had not realized that NATO made these claims but then the same accuracy claims are made about drone attacks in Pakistan.

The report did say that the air campaign was mostly precise but also said that the alliance refused to provide information on attacks that killed civilians. Some attacks did not seem to have any evident military target.

One wonders how accurate even this report is. Presumably many Libyans would not be anxious to provide any information that discredited the forces that helped them win over Gadaffi. The report also noted that there were serious human rights violations by members of anti-Gadaffi factions. These groups participated in the same sorts of crimes as Gadaffi loyalists.