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Egyptian government resists attempts to end torture

The longtime struggle by human rights groups to stop torture at the hands of the Egyptian security services shows no signs of improvement.

A woman lights a candle in memory of Italian PhD student Guilio Regeni, who was tortured and killed in the capital in January, at Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Cairo, Egypt March 5, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany - RTS9EQL
A woman lights a candle at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Cairo on March 5, 2016, in memory of Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni, who was tortured and killed in Egypt earlier that year. — REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

In 2014, a young Egyptian man in his early 20s was to be wed in a few hours. Celebrating, he rented a scooter with his friends, driving around and cheering in joy. They were stopped at a checkpoint, and, upon finding out that the groom did not have a license for the scooter, the police officer moved to confiscate the scooter. When the young man begged to keep it, the officer and his informants whaled on him, beating him to death.

“Imagine going out to celebrate getting married, and returning a corpse,” said lawyer and head of United Group for Law Negad El Borai, who spoke about one of the 150 cases of torture he has handled over two years. Borai decided to take a stance, but what started as a draft law to end torture ended up in his own prosecution and with two judges being investigated in the first official session April 24.

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