Special to WorldTribune.com

LONDON — Egypt’s military has been torturing civilians, human rights groups said.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said that the Egyptian military was concealing civilians in secret prisons as part of its stepped up war on terrorism.

In evidence collected from former detainees, the two Western human rights groups said at least 30 civilians were concealed in a prison northeast of Cairo.

“These are practices associated with the darkest hours of military and [former President Hosni] Mubarak’s rule,” Amnesty’s Middle East program deputy director Hassiba Hadi-Sahraoul said. “Egypt’s military cannot run roughshod over detainees’ rights like this.”

Some of those who disappeared were said to have been arrested at
Egyptian Army checkpoints in 2013. The detainees were said to have been
taken to Azouly prison in the Gala military base in Ismailiya where they
were beaten, electrocuted and burned with oil.

“The electrocution was over my clothes, but on the testicles,” a former
detainee recalled.

The abuses by the military were said to have intensified in the wake of
the coup against President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013. The coup was
engineered by then-Defense Minister Abdul Fatah Sisi, now president.

“Military prisons are only for military personnel who violate military
rules or civilians who attack military institutions,” an Egyptian Defense
Ministry spokesman said.

Egypt has the largest military in the Arab world, financed by the United
States. In May 2014, the administration of President Barack Obama released
$565 million in U.S. military aid to Egypt as well as ordered the delivery
of 10 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.

An Egyptian group, the El Nadim Center for the Management and
Rehabiliation of Victims of Violence, confirmed reports of torture in
Azouly. In March 2014, the center received details of how detainees were
treated.

“Torture takes place by pouring boiling water, boiling oil and
electrocuting victims,” the group, quoting an anonymous letter, said. “Some
detainees are bound by their feet and hands throughout the day in solitary
cells for months. In Azouly prison there are hundreds of detainees who have
committed no crime.”

  Amnesty International, Azouly prison, Human Rights Watch, Rights groups: Egypt’s military torturing civilians in secrets prisons, tortured