Amnesty International and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) have said in reports on the year 1997 there have been two negative developments.
The first was the People’s Assembly’s decision to extend the Emergency Law, in force since 1981, for three more years. According to the Amnesty report, thousands of suspected members of, or sympathizers with, banned Islamist groups, including possible prisoners of conscience, were being held without being charged or put on trial under the emergency legislation.
The second negative development was the implementation of a new law regulating the relationship between owners of agricultural land and tenant farmers.
The fierce confrontation between security forces and Islamist militants was highlighted by both reports as the main cause of human rights violations. Torture, ill-treatment of prisoners, extra-judicial executions and excessive use of force in dealing with angry demonstrations came top of the list of violations.
Innocent civilians were directly targeted by the Islamist militants, the EOHR said. Seven citizens were killed because they were suspected of acting as police informers and 25 Copts were killed in four attacks by militants. Security forces were also targeted by the militants. Forty-four policemen were killed in 21 attacks focused mainly in the southern provinces of Minya and Assiut. Twenty-four militants were killed by security forces.
Both reports referred to complaints of torture and ill-treatment in police stations. Naila Gabr, chief of the human rights desk at the Foreign Ministry said: "As far as the FM concerns the EOHR does not have the necessary legal status. Therefore the government should not be expected to comment on this report. I am very disappointed that an organization as Amnesty can issue a report that fails to take notice of some very obvious violations of human rights that were committed by terrorist groups against innocent civilians in Luxor and near the Cairo Museum.Hun The very first paragraph of its report should have been dedicated to this matter. But Amnesty chose to use double standards."
A security expert criticized the work of human rights organizations in this country as far from impartial. Fouad Allam, former head of the Interior Ministry’s anti-terrorism department: "We have become used to such inaccurate reports, which do not take into account the viewpoints of any party except the militants."
