Egypt: Mass Arrests and Torture in Sinai

By: Human Rights Watch

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Synopsis: On October 7, 2004, a massive car-bomb wrecked the Taba Hilton hotel located on the Egyptian-Israeli border. There were two smaller bombings later that night at nearby tourist campsites. The attacks killed more than thirty and wounded more than one hundred. Most of the victims were tourists, many of them Israelis, as well as Egyptian hotel staff. Initial speculation by Egyptian and Israeli authorities focused on al-Qaeda or other international groups that have carried out large-scale attacks against civilians. But just over two weeks later, on October 25, Egypt's Ministry of Interior announced that it had identified nine persons responsible for the attacks, all from the North Sinai area: five were in custody, two had been killed carrying out the attack, and two remained at large. Meanwhile, around October 13, Egypt's State Security Investigation service (SSI) began a campaign of mass arbitrary arrests in and around al-`Arish, the government and commercial center of North Sinai, apparently as part of its investigation into the Taba attacks. These arrests continued unabated after the October 25 announcement through early December. Egyptian human rights groups said that security forces had rounded up as many as three thousand persons, including several hundred persons detained solely to secure the surrender of wanted family members.

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