Egypt Opposition Activist ‘Tortured to Death’

Photo Credit: AFP

A 28-year-old protester died early Monday morning after allegedly being tortured to death, an Egypt opposition party charges. Mohammed el Gindy was protesting in Tahrir Square last month on the second anniversary of the country’s revolution  before going missing for several days.  According to the Health Ministry, el Gindy, unconscious and suffering from internal bleeding, was brought by ambulance to a Cairo hospital January 28 – four days after he went missing – having been involved in a “car accident.” Activists detained with el Gindy in a police roundup last week reported that he was taken to a police camp and subjected to torture.  Mona Amer, a spokeswoman for Popular Current, the party to which el Gindy belonged, said she observed signs of electrocution, strangulation and broken ribs on el Gindy’s body. Mohamed Abdel Aziz, a lawyer with Al-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, accused the hospital of changing el Gindy’s arrival date to conceal his kidnapping.  The Interior Ministry issued no immediate comment.

Widespread protests and allegations of violence have rocked Egypt in the past two weeks, including reports of ongoing sexual violence against women in Tahrir Square and the dissemination of video purportedly showing several police officers dragging and beating a naked man on a Cairo street last Friday.  The National Salvation Front on Sunday issued a statement condemning President Morsi, the security forces and the Interior Ministry for failing to protect peaceful protesters and holding them responsible for the violence and torture in recent days. The prosecutor-general’s office has called for an investigation into protests outside the Presidential Palace on Friday that left one person dead, and President Morsi’s office said in a Facebook statement Monday that it had ordered a probe into el Gindy’s death, adding, “[there is] no return to rights abuses of citizens and their freedoms… after the January 25 revolution.”