Political Prisoners in Egypt

Abstract

This research is detailed study about the political prisoners in Egypt. The term political prisoner is defined. Political history of Egypt is described and the influencing factors that are contributing to political imprisonments are discussed. It’s a historic issue which in ongoing. The politicians in the Egypt do not show any tolerance. The political war between Islamists and Liberals is the main cause of conflict which is an influencing factor in this issue. The political culture in Egypt is weak and the institutions are not strong. Freedom of speech is not properly provided to the public, and if someone speaks against the system he is not tolerated. Some contextual factors are explained in the study and some laws regarding the issue are discussed. And the study is concluded with some solutions for this issue.

Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Research Question

Research Methodology

Literature Review

Data Analysis

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Apolitical prisoneris somebodyheld in prisonfor the reason that he has conflicted or complained the government accountable. The persons or some groups, that are challenging the legality of locking up of a prisoner, use this term. The groups that are in support of this term defined a political prisoner as a person who is held in prison for his or her contribution in any political activity (The Struggle for Status under International Law:, 2003).

For political prisoners there is no proper definition which is universally accepted. Though, a person who is in prison for some political activities, especially those who compete against or criticize the government is defined as a political prisoner. Egypt is constitutionally established, but there were several cases of conflict in current years. Egypt has merely a partial democracy, where votes permit solitary fewer political parties, and the polls have recognized to permit limited deviations from pre-democratic eras. Even then, Egypt has finished countless improvements, and may reach at a real democracy in the future. The Muslim Brotherhood is the core challenge, which run for votes, but which follow an anti-democratic thought. Egypt’s western associates may be stopped by the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2005 votes from pushing the democratic improvements any more. There is quite a fair amount of freedom of speech and also, in most of the cases, the civil rights are secure in the Egypt. At the present time, there are approximately seventeen thousands political prisoners in the country. And the militant groups of Islamists are acting as a threat to the government. According to Egyptian Organization of the human rights majority of the prisoners includes the Islamists. The political system in the Egypt gets financial aid from the United States, and due to so much challenge the government is facing, it cannot react to these challenges without this financial support. The constitution of Egypt states the country as a Republic of Arabs, which has a democratic communist system. In the Egyptian system all the political power can be categorized into four parts: court system, legislature, president and the cabinet. But in reality, all the power is with the president who is elected for a time span of six years by referendum.

In Egypt, on 25^th January 2011, violence in the country started. In February 2011, government was overthrown and again on 3 July 2013 the Islamist government was overthrown, which resulted in continuous violence and disputes in the region in response to the overthrow. The Arab spring is a groundbreaking wave of disputes and demonstrations, disturbances and kind of civil war in the Egypt and the rest of the Arab world Egypt is facing insecurity, Mohammed Morsi's followers are asking to restore the Islamist President since he was suspended by a military coup. The army operation left hundreds of demonstrators dead, and several leaders of Morsi’s party were arrested and their movement and party is isolated and facing great pressure from liberals. After Morsi, The acting government that has been cracked down in different cities has increased the tension among the Islamists and liberals. Main factors lead to it were that after the revolutionary movement against Hosni Mubarak and his downfall Morsi was elected as first President with 52% of the votes. Morsi was blamed by liberals and seculars that He is monopolizing the government and is failing to implement necessary reforms. The Morsi’s Party said they were not given enough time and liberals continued to protest and criticizing the government.

Research Question

This research covers the following question.

What are the main reasons that are leading to increasing the political imprisonments in the Egypt?

What are the possible solution to end these political imprisonments?

Research Methodology

As the time span is short, we will go for secondary research. It is the type of research in which data is collected from already done researches or literatures. In this type of research data is collected from different resources like research journals, books, websites, documents from websites, movies, reports, magazines, newspaper etc. (What is Secondary Research? , n.d.). The advantage of secondary research is that the data is easily available and is less costly. The data are also available in abundance in this type of research. We will make the use of research journals, books, magazines, newspaper and company website for conduction of secondary research.

The articles, newspapers, websites, books and journals published related to this issue are studied in this research to analyze the issue. The international laws are discussed which are related to this issue.

Literature Review

Arab is perhaps an area which faced a historical, political victimization in the history, not only political workers, but writers and journalist also faced political imprisonment and Oppression by dictators in different countries. A lot of literature is being written on this issue, but the people who wrote about all this gone through worst punishment in terms of imprisonment and assassination. (Torture, Imprisonment, and Political Assassination, 2012)

However, Egypt, which is known to be a most progressive democracy in the whole Arab world, but even in Egypt extrajudicial imprisonment is reported by different human rights activists and groups.

Rifaat Said, secretary general of the leftist Progressive Unionist Party said that the people of Egypt are breathing between two extreme forces on the one hand, there are extremist who are violating human rights and on the other hand the government is also teasing people to save themselves.

(Political Foes Tortured in Egypt, 1992)

Currently in Egypt, on 25^th January 2011, violence in the country started. In February 2011, government was overthrown and again on 3 July 2013 the Islamist government was overthrown, which resulted in continuous violence and disputes in the region in response to the overthrow. Mohammed Morsi's followers are asking to restore the Islamist President since he was suspended by a military coup. The army operation left hundreds of demonstrators dead, and several leaders of Morsi’s party were arrested and their movement and party is isolated and facing great pressure from liberals. After Morsi, The acting government that has been cracked down in different cities has increased the tension among the Islamists and liberals. There are hundreds of political prisoners in the jails of the Egyptians.

According to the new guidelines of the PACE individual country can give suggestions for who should be termed as a political prisoner formally. The term “political prisoner” is also used by Amnesty International to define any prisoner who has some political element in his case—either the act of the prisoner in motivated by some political element, the act itself is related to politics, or the element motivates the authorities. However, there is no active campaign by Amnesty for releasing the political prisoners. The term "political prisoner" is used only to describe those prisoners for whom there is demand of a fair and legal trial. In most of the cases, the organizations for international rights and intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, the European Union and the International Red Cross will welcome suggestions by trusted groups running in the country of interest where there is a political prisoner.

The term “political prisoner” according to some international organizations is inadequately objective. You can see that the Human Rights are preferring to use different terminologies as an alternative in its campaigns, for example, “human right defender”. In very rare cases a country will raise its own prisoners, but the honesty of such statements is doubtful. Like in one case, the newly elected government freed many prisoners who were imprisoned for political reasons by the preceding parliaments. There is a clear difference between normal criminals and the prisoners jailed for some political reasons, even in those countries that do not accept the actuality of political prisoners. (Explainer: What Defines A Political Prisoner?, 2013)

Reason for political imprisonment:

• Lack of political tolerance
• Long dictatorship
• Conflicts among the institutes of government
• Restriction on freedom of speech
• Political victimization of opponents
• Weak democratic culture

Data Analysis

The data which were reviewed shows that this is an historic problem with Egyptian democracy and there is continuous conflict between the government and the people who want reforms in the government whether they are Islamic reformers or the liberals.

However, Egyptians, civil society members and activists had complained the prevalent use of cruelty and other mistreatment involving prejudicial prosecutions of civilians in military and alternative courts. Strong penalties were imposed on freedom of expressions and public demonstration against any unfair policy of government. These issues also involved the discriminatory laws against different religious and ethnic groups and minorities. These laws were used to suppress opponents and the civil society and the activist of human rights and they were manhandled badly.

The reason for all this is weak in tolerated political culture and the lack of democratic roots because of the dictatorship of dictators which lead to restriction on freedom of speech and human rights. (Egypt Human Rights, 2014)

Possible solution:

• Political institutes should be strengthened
• All parties should learn to tolerate each other
• The new constitution should be made with the consultation of all related parties.
• Democracy should be strengthened

International laws

1 For the treatment of the people imprisoned some standard minimum rules were designed. (Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, 2012)

2 Random capture and detention. (Human Rights., 1998)

3 International Agreement on Political and Civil Rights.

Conclusion

Political prisoners are basically the prisoners who are jailed because of some political reasons. Like some political conflicts between people and the governments. This study shows that it’s all political war that is contributing to political imprisonments. The conflicting parties such as Islamists and the Liberals do not show any tolerance. They do not let people exercise the freedom of speech. Some solutions for this issue are that the political institutions must be strengthened. All the parties should learn to tolerate each other and the remarks of the public should be given a value. Political institutes should be strengthened. A new constitution should be made with the consensus of all related parties. Moreover, democracy should be strengthened.

References

Egypt Human Rights. (2014, May 04). Retrieved from www.amnestyusa.org: http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/egypt

Explainer: What Defines A Political Prisoner? (2013, January 23). Retrieved May 04, 2014, from www.rferl.org: http://www.rferl.org/content/explainer-political-prisoners/24881810.html

Human Rights. (1998, December 01). Retrieved May 04, 2014, from www.un.org: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Political Foes Tortured in Egypt. (1992, May 2). Retrieved may 3, 2014, from articles.latimes.com: http://articles.latimes.com/1992-08-03/news/mn-4684_1_human-rights-organization

Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. (2012, May 16). Retrieved May 04, 2014, from www.ohchr.org: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/TreatmentOfPrisoners.aspx

The Struggle for Status under International Law:. (2003, September 19). Retrieved May 04, 2014, from marilynbuck.com: http://marilynbuck.com/PP_status_international_law.html

Torture, Imprisonment, and Political Assassination. (2012, July 17). Retrieved May 03, 2014, from www.aljadid.com: http://www.aljadid.com/content/torture-imprisonment-and-political-assassination-arab-novel

What is Secondary Research? . (n.d.). Retrieved from knowthis: http://www.knowthis.com/data-collection-low-cost-secondary-research/what-is-secondary-research