iReporter : Still wondering, what are the human rights organizations waiting for?

Video Translation:

Interviewer: Welcome again to our show..

Our show’s topic today will be “The Egyptian torture” with reference to the Egyptian human rights organization report for 2009 , Our guest today is Mr. Omar Afify the Egyptian former police officer and human rights activist who lives here in Washington.

Welcome to our show Mr. Omar..

So referring to this report there is a 125 death cases due to torture since 2000 up to 2009 .. so that’s within 8 years!! and that includes 12 torture death cases only in 2009.. in one year!! We were hoping that number to decrease through out the years and not increase!! What’s happening ? you were a member of that system as a police officer and a trainer, please describe to us the police officer psychology , How can they easily kill people? Or even hitting them in streets, there is some cases of simple people as Sayed who was pulled and hit in the street till he died!!

Mr. Omar Afify : Well first, the Police Academy trains police officers for four years that he is better than all people, as soon as he wears the uniform after the first 45 days he feels that he is the best and he is created differently than others!! And the way it starts is by isolating him from the society, and they start brain washing him by repeating that he is better than everyone, don’t interact with them, they are crazy .. and so on. As if it’s a shame to be a normal civilian and human !! So they teach him that he is above all his society and they should serve him, and the crazy thing that our society helps him achieving this !! let me tell you a little story about that : When I was young I was playing soccer in front of our house, so there was a butcher named uncle Shawkey who keeps yelling at me to not play infront of his shop, after I joined the Police Academy and was out after the first 45 days, I was coming back home wearing the police black uniform, and uncle Shawkey was sitting crossed legs, as soon as he saw me he stood up quickly and saluted me with respect !! though I am still the same little boy whome he used to yell at and tell him to go away!! Since this moment I loved being a police officer.

Interviewer: So it’s a society’s psychology ?

Mr. Omar Afify:Ooh yea, it is a society’s psychology, the taxi driver won’t accept his fare from a police officer, the butcher will give him the best thing he has…

Interviewer: But yet that doesn’t give them the excuse to kill with cold blood !!

Mr. Omar Afify:Regretfully what happens is that the police officer gets indirect orders to do so!! For an example, they hand him a case, and he isn’t fully trained to solve cases nor has the time to do so, after working for sixteen hours a day they ask you to still solve a case and find the criminal!! So where is the time that the police officer will dedicate for any case if he has no enough time left within his day?? So he will take the easier shortcut by using torturing methods, as hitting and electrocuting and so on . and that sometimes ends up with dead people due to the torture !! Because he doesn’t work as per his job description as a police officer, who in this world works 16 hours a day and pay him about US $320-$400 per month !!! The police secretary gets paid around US $120 per month !! how anyone would live like that !! so ofcourse he will be malicious towards his society and everything in this world !!

Interviewer: But shouldn't he be spiteful towards the system that he works for and pays him?

Mr. Omar Afify:Well the system does that intentionally to create that gap between the Police officers and his society. Originally there are no problems between the police officers and his society, but its all created by the system, as a police officer I have to serve my community not to hit them and kill them, and bytheway the gun, the salary, the uniform that they show off with, all that is given by my society!! So that’s their reward? That’s so mean and low.

Interviewer: Sorry to cut you off, but the cases of torturing and killing people, do you think it’s an immature and irresponsible behavior.

Mr. Omar Afify:What you saw and read isn’t even 1/1000 of the actual real incidents, you know all what you read in newspapers about finding an unknown human corpse?? That’s when you know its one of the police victims!! That will be a dead body thrown from prison or state security !! the 125 cases mentioned in the human rights report are only the cases that they have confirmed !!

Interviewer: Can you give me examples??

Mr. Omar Afify:Listen, as soon as you read on newspapers that they found an unknown human corpse in the Nile or a pond right away you should know that’s one of those victims killed by police officers!! That’s a crisis that should have a solution.

With my respect to mr. Hafez Abu Seada, he keeps saying that they will interview the police officers, yea sure, they can always have interviews and will give the best speeches, but its all words, no actions!!

Interviewer: What do you think is the solution??

Mr. Omar Afify:The solution is to have a forth party, Its so hard to prove it, as you will never find a written order to kill or torture someone, its all verbal orders, and the worse crises is the torture that’s visible to everybody !! the peaceful demonstrations for example that takes place in Egypt as the one in Medan Al Tahreer, that’s a public torture for all the world to see !! they use illegal techniques to stop the demonstrations by creating a closed square on them with no way out , and they start the torture !! that’s against all rules all over the world!! Because they have at least to give them an open side for a way out .

Interviewer: The Ministry of interior (MOI) has spoken as usual and confirmed that when the police officer breaks the law he goes to jail.

Mr. Omar Afify:Well, if you want to call it jail! They just do this to calm down people, its not jail, its actually a reward ! he doesn’t go to prison, but he gets jailed in a 5 star hospital, with all facilities as AC, Satellite, his wife can stay with him, its like a vacation.

Interviewer: In another words it’s a paid vacation!!

Mr. Omar Afify:For an example, Islam Nabeel, and Yasser el Akkad, they were back again to their jobs in the FBI!! That’s a crisis, if you’re just a worker in a bakery and you stole a bread loaf, you will lose your job, because it’s a crime!! Imagine who stole a human sole or torture a human goes back to work as if nothing ever happened!! Doesn’t make any sense!!

Interviewer: So Mr. Omar, now you are saying that what the MOI (Ministry of Interior) doing is fake verdicts and punishments just to stop people from talking?

Mr. Omar Afify:Yes yes yes,

Its true that the human rights organization will come and start investigating, but they will only hear the best but the truth is that the MOI are taught to play around with rules and manipulate them to their needs!!

Let me make this clear, Police officers are under a very huge pressure, is only 10% - 15%

Who uses torture and the rest 85% aren’t happy with whats going on and they are against it.

Interviewer: Then why those 85% don’t do something? Like a strike or something?

Mr. Omar Afify:Well its not that easy, they need the money, and they cant risk their life and their families life.. if they showed that they are against torture they will be sent to work in Saeed ( south cairo) and just keep him apart from his family, or lower his job level.. its not that easy.

Interviewer: So how can we solve this?

Mr. Omar Afify:The solution is so simple,

1- They should be raised to be healthy police officers.

2- They should have mental health checkups

3- They should change the death or torture penalty so it won’t be $40! It’s cheaper than a steak dish!!

4- Police officers should be punished as the rest of the civilians.

5- He shouldn’t be back to his work if he did torture or kill!

it cant be better.. the police officer kills and tortures, then he takes a paid vacation as a “penalty” then back to work !! Why would he stop?

Interviewer: So now you are requesting the Egyptian government to request the MOI to change?

Mr. Omar Afify:No, not the government, the political leader should chose wither the Ministry of interior or the civilians, what’s happening now is very unaccepted. For an example, what happened to Khaled Saed was just a “execution error”, instead of putting him in prison and then throw his body, they just rushed into throwing the body, which is a step less that caused us to know what actually happened and that’s why there was eyewitnesses. All cases that we know about were just cases that had execution or performance errors from the convicted police officers.

Interviewer: So you think there is a lot of cases..

Mr. Omar Afify:Ooooooohh a lot a lot of cases, imagine what we only know for 2009 is 12 cases!!

Interviewer: A lot of families are also scared to complain?

Mr. Omar Afify:Yes ofcourse, they will always threaten him by mentioning that he has to take care of the rest of his kids, or they will have to act differently!

Interviewer: Ok we will stop here today, and we will continue in later episodes with Mr. Omar Afify human rights activist living here is Washington and a former Egyptian police officer. Thanks for coming.