Egypt's Interior Minister: Security and human rights promote each other
Egypt, Politics, 9/17/2003

Egypt's Interior Minister Assistant, General Muhammad Sha'rawi, said that there was no contradiction between maintaining security and respecting human rights and fundamental liberties. Reality proves that security promotes respect of these rights, he noted.

In his lecture entitled "Means of Achieving Security without Violating Human Rights" to UN eleven-day training program session on human rights, which started on September 13, Gen. Sha'rawi stressed that striking balance between respecting human rights and maintaining security required many procedures including the policemen's full awareness of legal commitments pertaining to their work.

While enforcing law and maintaining security and stability, the Egyptian police is keen to respect the basic rights of the citizens such as the rights to life, freedom, safety and privacy, Gen. Sha'rawi said.

Egypt was one of the first countries to sign international agreements and conventions on human rights, which means that it is fully committed to their stipulations, he added.

He said that the Egyptian criminal legislation stipulated a hard penalty of three to ten-year imprisonment against any policeman who would order the torture of any suspect.

He affirmed that his men were committed to have official permission before searching any home as long as the suspect was not caught red-handedly.

On the detention of suspects in police stations, Gen. Sha'rawi said that the Interior Minister, General Habib El-Adly, issued directives that no citizen would be imprisoned except in the prisons specified by the law.

The minister also ordered the establishment of detention rooms for minor crimes in all police stations, he added.

Gen. Sha'rawi pointed out that among the procedures taken by the ministry to maintain respect of the citizens' basic rights was ordering the senior security officials to inspect the detention rooms in all police stations to see if they suit the detainees' number in terms of sanitation, accommodation, ventilation and lightening as well as lavatories and other necessary requirements.

The security authorities conduct daily inspections of detention rooms and receive the complaints of the detainees, he noted, adding that ailing detainees were offered medical care in cooperation with the Health Ministry.

On enforcing sentences, Gen. Sha'rawi said that the concerned security departments are currently adopting the state-of-the-art technology to hunt down sentenced criminals through tracing their criminal records.

Previous Stories:
  Egypt's Human Rights Organization's report   (6/30/2003)
  People's Assembly approves draft law on setting up Human Rights Council   (6/17/2003)
  Shura Council approves in principle draft law on human rights council   (6/9/2003)
  Egypt: Founding a national council for Human rights   (5/22/2003)

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