Egypt protesters tell of beatings while in custody

One lawyer says interrogators whipped him with a rubber hose and burned him with cigarettes. Former detainees say they'll continue to demonstrate.

Mohamed Badr told of being burned with cigarette butts, whipped with a rubber… (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

February 08, 2011|By Ned Parker and Doha Al Zohairy, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Cairo — The young lawyer sat in a cafe, burn marks on his hands, purple and yellow bruises hidden under the legs of his jeans. He knows he might be followed, but he doesn't care. He says that telling his story might be the only way to protect himself.

Mohamed Badr is among dozens of middle-class Egyptians, many of them never in trouble before, who were picked up by the state security apparatus after their country erupted in protest against President Hosni Mubarak.

Among the most prominent is Wael Ghonim, the senior marketing executive for Google Inc. in the Middle East and one of the architects of the demonstrations. Ghonim was released Monday. He described being detained, blindfolded and taken to a state security office, but said he was not abused in custody.

Badr, in contrast, told of being burned with cigarette butts, whipped with a rubber hose and having hot oil poured on his pants.

Human Rights Watch estimates that the government jailed at least 1,400 people in the first days of the protests, including looters. In the last week, it says, at least 87 people have been detained in politically motivated arrests. Most have been held anywhere from several hours to three days; like Badr, many have stories of abuse.

The rights group believes there have been more arrests than it has been able to document. Although government officials are promising reforms as they try to quell the protests, rights advocates fear that detentions and harassment will increase if talks with the opposition stall.

"The government is clearly putting pressure on the protesters and demonstration leaders through these short-term detentions," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch. "The fear is that the repression will increase as the dialogue between the protesters and the army becomes more difficult.

"That's why everyone I talk to on the square and on the phone is concerned about what is coming," he said.

Badr and others say they will continue protesting and speaking out. If they don't, they fear, the next time they are picked up they won't be coming back.

Badr, a lawyer with Barclays bank, eyed the people in the outdoor cafe as he told his story. Although most of them were also lawyers, he tried to listen in on their phone conversations above the bustle of waiters bringing tea and water pipes.