AP reports that, despite a government plan to shut it down, an NGO that helps victims of torture and abuse in Egypt plans to continue to document cases of torture committed by security forces.
At a news conference on Sunday, psychologist Dr. Aida Seif el-Dawla, co-founder of the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, said governmental officials told her the center will be officially closed on Monday.
Another worker at El Nadeem, psychiatrist Suzan Fayyad, told AP that the government had tried to close the center last Wednesday, but agreed to hold off the closing until Monday to give the NGO time to contest the closure.
The closure has caused an outcry from many human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have spoken out publicly against the center’s closure, claiming it is part of Egypt’s plan to crackdown on human rights activism in the country.
The Middle East’s director of HRW, Sarah Leah Whitson, told the AP last Wednesday, “The Egyptian authorities are smothering the country’s leading human rights defenders one by one. Closing the Nadeem Center would be a devastating blow to Egypt’s human rights movement as well as victims of abuse.”
According to the AP, Fayyad added that the NGO was told that the orders to close the center came down “from the highest level.”
Seif el-Dawla was awarded Human Rights Watch’s highest honor in 2003 for her work in fighting torture and promoting women’s rights and freedom of association in Egypt.
At a press conference on Sunday, unable to control her emotions, Seif el-Dawla said through tears, “The only way for there to be no torture reports is for the state to stop torturing people.”
The Egyptian police have come under much scrutiny lately for their reported free reign of abuse in the country, claims which the Interior Ministry have said were not widespread, but only isolated incidences.
