Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are resorting to vigilante justice in Egypt’s power struggle. During clashes with opponents of President Mohammed Morsi last Wednesday night, the Islamists took prisoners and tortured them with beatings. Eyewitness reports suggest that the police tolerated the attacks.
The Islamists got hold of Mohammed Omar just as he was delivering bandages to a gas station where injured people were being treated. “You’re an enemy of God!” they yelled at him.
“There were five men. They beat me and dragged me away,” says Omar, a computer expert who lives in Cairo. His face is bruised and his eyes are swollen shut, and his wrists are cut from the plastic cuffs they put on him.
They took him to a sort of room consisting on one side of a gate to the presidential palace, with the other walls made up of steel barriers and police officers. Here members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups interrogated and mistreated their “prisoners.”
Mohammed Omar is one of many demonstrators who say they were held by Islamists last Wednesday, in some cases for more than 12 hours. Now, as witnesses are telling their stories of that night, a clear picture is emerging not just of the violence committed by members of the Brotherhood, but also their readiness to mete out arbitrary vigilante justice.
Last Wednesday, supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi fought running battles in front of the presidential palace in Cairo’s upscale district of Heliopolis. Both sides were extremely violent, beating each other with baseball bats, firing guns and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. Eight people died. The Muslim Brotherhood said all the dead were from their ranks, but that’s probably not entirely true. There is no reliable information, however.
Some 140 people, among them women and minors, were “arrested” — not by the police, but by the Islamists. “That is an incredible occurrence,” says human rights lawyer Ragya Omran, who was at the scene. “They have no right whatsoever to do that.”
Bloodiest Night Since The Revolution
“There were around 15 members of the Brotherhood — big strong guys who looked like bodybuilders. They hit the prisoners with their fists and kicked them and tore their clothes off them,” he says. He saw how the Islamists repeatedly brought in young men whom they had picked out of the crowd at random. Their money, telephones and identity papers were confiscated. They were passed on to the police later. “The Muslim Brotherhood members demanded the young men tell them who had paid them, and accused them of being thieves or supporters of the old regime,” he says.
Three of the Muslim Brotherhood men appeared to be in charge and were issuing orders. “If the prisoners denied the accusations then the beatings got worse,” says Ghari. One of the men begged: “I’m an educated man. I have a car. Do I look like a thief?” Most of the prisoners were too weak to be able to speak. Two of them were unconsciousness and looked to be in life-threatening condition.
“I’d call what happened there torture,” says Ghari.
An investigating committee set up by the Justice Ministry issued a statement saying that on this night, the bloodiest since the revolution almost two years ago, 31 people were tortured. Human rights lawyer Ragya Oman insists the total is higher than that. “116 people were badly mistreated,” she says.
The Muslim Brotherhood insists on its version of the story. “These people had weapons,” says Mahmoud Hussein, general secretary of the Brotherhood. “They attacked us and we only defended ourselves.” He admits that some of the people making arrests were members of the Muslim Brotherhood. But he says they immediately handed the men over to the police.
He defended the protests despite the violence. “It is our duty to defend our democratically legitimate president.” He said the prisoners were supporters of the old regime and paid troublemakers.
Particularly controversial is the fact that President Morsi also initially championed this version of the story. How much he knew of the Islamists’ indiscriminate vigilante justice is not yet clear. However something he said in a statement on national television last Thursday raises questions. Morsi said the detained had admitted to having ties to the political opposition and having been paid to carry out violence. He appeared to be referring to statements forced out of the prisoners by the Islamists.
Spiegel has the full article
