Italy recalls ambassador to Egypt amid police torture scandal

Cairo’s El Nadim Center is one of many Egyptian NGOs fighting for human rights in a country where it’s a rarity. For more than 20 years, the local nonprofit has offered a psychological rehab program for victims of torture and documented incidents of police brutality.

But Egyptian authorities are trying to shut down the center, especially as the recent death of Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni has increased international pressure on the country to address impunity among its police and intelligence officials. This morning, Italian officials recalled their country’s ambassador to Egypt to protest the lack of “truth” about Regeni’s torture and slaying.

So far, Egyptian officials have not been swayed by the international outcry. In the past three months, police have tried twice to shut down the El Nadim Center. The latest attempt came on Wednesday.

“I haven’t seen a worse situation than what we have now—the violations, the impunity, the defiance,” said Aida Seif al-Dawla, a psychiatrist and one of the center’s founders. “They keep repeating there is no torture, that there are no forced disappearances, as if this would somehow make it a valid statement.”

Last year, the center documented about 600 cases of police torture and almost 500 people killed by security forces, 100 of them while incarcerated. Egyptian authorities are investigating the center and other advocacy groups on possible criminal charges for illegally receiving foreign funds. But the advocacy groups countered those allegations by saying the government is only trying to shut down dissent while police abuses worsen.

Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, said Egypt’s crackdown on advocacy groups has increased partly due to the external pressure that followed Regeni’s death in February. The incident ignited outrage over Egypt’s abuses because Regeni’s mutilated body bore some semblance to other alleged police victims.

“Burning by cigarettes, ripping off fingernails, and dumping bodies, that’s their style, and it’s very common in disappearance cases,” al-Dawla said.

Last month, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said it killed members of a gang suspected of killing Regeni. But that failed to appease Italian authorities and Regeni’s family, who believe it’s a cover-up. Italian and Egyptian prosecutors began talks in Rome yesterday to reach a solution in the case, and Italy expressed its frustration.

“Unless there’s a change of pace, Italy is ready to react by adopting immediate and proportional measures,” Italy’s minister of foreign affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, said during the meeting.

McInerney said Italy’s outrage is no surprise.

“The Egyptian government has been evasive, it puts out statements that are contradictory and don’t make sense,” McInerney said. “The constructive response would be for the Egyptian government to make a committed effort to ending the use of torture by its security forces and intelligence services, but their response has been to try and target those who draw attention to it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.