For Egypt's jailed children, an ongoing plight

For Egypt's jailed children, an ongoing plight Jano Charbel uruknet.info

February 10, 2013 Police arrest yet another group of minors Friday, as protests and street clashes again swept across Cairo and its surrounding governorates. Among the latest minors to be arrested and locked up alongside adults is 11-year-old Yehia Abdel Razeq, a boy from Sharqiya Governorate. Estimates compiled by rights groups suggest police have arrested and jailed more than 140 minors since the second anniversary of the 25 January revolution earlier this year. In many cases, these minors have reportedly been abused by police and subjected to bullying by older detainees with whom they are typically held in custody. Malek Adly, lawyer at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, said, "Children and minors in custody are often subjected to police brutality, theft, torture, threats and sexual harassment or other assaults." Adly added that the state is shirking its legal obligations to protect minors in police custody, under the provisions of both its domestic legislation — Child Law 12/1996 and 126/2008 — and international legislation, including the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child, which Egypt ratified in 1990. A report issued by Human Rights Watch in 2012 claims that more than 300 minors were detained by police and military officers last year alone. A number of these children stood trial with adults before criminal courts, while other were sentenced to lengthy prison terms — some reaching up to 15 years imprisonment — by military tribunals, in contravention of international law, particularly the CRC. Both domestic and international legislation stipulate that children be held in isolation from older detainees. Mohamed, the elder brother of 14-year-old bone cancer patient Mahmoud Adel, who was detained from 27 January to 6 February, said that "Mahmoud was not placed in a cell or center for juveniles, as is claimed. He was detained with adults, many of whom are criminals, drug addicts and pill-poppers." Mahmoud Adel was denied proper medical attention by authorities during his nearly two-week detention at the Borg al-Arab Police Station and later at the Alexandria Security Directorate. Following concerted campaigns by the media, human rights groups and lawyers, several of the minors detained by authorities in Alexandria, including Adel, have since been released. Dozens of other minors, however, still languish within police stations and prison cells, rather than being referred to juvenile centers, as is stipulated by domestic law. Some even stand trial before criminal courts, rather than in the designated juvenile justice system. Adly said the authorities simply round up minors collectively during protests and street clashes, adding that about 25 percent those currently detained by police are children. Deprived of justice and vilified "What we’ve witnessed in past protests is that police usually release children under 15, after a few hours or days in detention," Priyanka Motaparthy, a children’s rights researcher at HRW, stated. "Minors, however, between the ages of 15 and 17 are usually detained with adult prisoners and are not sent to juvenile courts." She explained that these older minors are often treated as accomplices to the same crimes committed by the grown-ups with whom they are being held. "Under Egypt’s Child Law, authorities are to send arrested minors to juvenile courts unless they are involved in other crimes," said Motaparthy. "Yet dozens of children are still standing trial with adults — under the provisions of criminal law, which treat children as accomplices to crimes — if they are accused of destroying public property, attacking police forces, etc." "Even if they are caught committing a crime," said Motaparthy, "they should be treated as children who need rehabilitation and counseling, not as criminals." Mohamed worries that his brother’s experiences while in detention may be detrimental to both his physical and psychological condition. "Although he doesn’t smoke, we’d been sending Mahmoud cigarettes to give to his cellmates so that they didn’t bully or beat him," the older brother stated. "We were also asked to pay LE20 per day to the chief bully in his cell so that Mahmoud wouldn’t be assaulted." There is "very clearly a problem of lack of implementation of Egypt’s 1996 Child Law and the CRC," Motaparthy stressed. According to law, officials who violate existing regulations meant to protect minors may be punished by imprisonment and/or fines. Motaparthy went on to comment that in some cases, "authorities have painted arrested minors as being enemies of the state, even before they’ve been convicted of anything." What’s more, she stressed, the Interior Ministry must refrain from "publishing photos of children’s faces, as this violates their right to privacy. Yet the Interior Ministry does this on its own YouTube channel." Furthermore, the HRW researcher pointed out that officials have resorted to "campaigns which vilify street children and arrested minors — not that these children are angels. Yet Egypt’s Child Law is meant to protect the rights of minors who are not of age, to keep them from being locked up and charged with grown-ups." "The authorities don’t know the ABCs of justice," stated Adly. "If authorities fear children, then they fear the future and they fear justice." "We must understand that violence against protesters, and especially violence against defenseless children, will only lead to more unrest and feelings of injustice among the populace," the lawyer argued. Eleven-year-old Yehia Abdel Razeq is just one of the latest minors to be deprived of his basic rights in what is an alarming rate of child detention and abuse. "They use street children as scapegoats — along with the homeless and the poor," Adly said. Source