Excerpt: "The Egyptian regime is fostering an environment in their prisons
that makes them a fertile ground for extremist ideology to flourish."
Prisoner in Egypt. (photo: AP)
ISIS Recruitment Thrives in Brutal Prisons Run by US-Backed Egypt
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
26 November 15
For nearly two years, Mohamed Soltan, a 26-year-old citizen of both Egypt
and America, endured torture, deprivation, and cruelty while locked in the
prisons of Egyptian military dictator Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. In 2013, he was
among thousands arrested in a country-wide crackdown on civil society
activists, journalists, and members of the deposed government following
Sisi's coup and massacre of protestors in Cairo's Raba'a Adawiya Square.
Soltan was released this year after a 400-day hunger strike in which he lost
over 130 pounds and nearly died, saved only by the intervention of the
American government on his behalf. Despite bending to pressure in his case,
the Egyptian regime continues to imprison as many as 41,000 other political
prisoners, recent Human Rights Watch estimates suggest. And Soltan worries
that extremism is incubating in those facilities, where he witnessed and
experienced torture. Today, he says that, through its oppressive practices,
the Sisi government is effectively acting as a "recruiting agent" for
extremist groups like the Islamic State.
"The regime is fostering an environment in their prisons that makes them a
fertile ground for that kind of ideology to flourish," Soltan says. "The
brutality and the overwhelming loss of hope is creating a situation which
fits [the Islamic State's] narrative, and they're using it to try and
recruit people and spread their message."
Despite Soltan's ordeal, some of his own relatives support Sisi. Like many
families in Egypt today, they are starkly divided between support for Sisi's
military regime and for the deposed government of Mohamed Morsi. Soltan's
father, Salah, who was also taken into custody, was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and served in Morsi's government, although Soltan himself
remained aloof from the party. "I was against the policies of Morsi, but I
would've liked to have seen a referendum or early elections instead of a
coup," Soltan says.
The Obama administration has taken a similarly mixed stand, occasionally
criticizing Sisi's human rights abuses even as it continues to send him
roughly $1.5 billion in mostly military aid each year.
Soltan spent most of his life in the United States and moved back to Egypt
near the beginning of 2013 after his mother was diagnosed with cancer. "Over
the course of my life I'd gotten used to the American idea of having
elections for pretty much everything - sheriffs, school board trustees,
judges - so the idea of not even having an elected president was crazy to
me."
On August 14, 2013, the military used deadly force to clear thousands of
protestors who had encamped in Cairo's Raba'a Square in protest against the
new regime. At least 800 people were killed and thousands more wounded,
including Soltan, who was among a group of media activists and journalists
who had been broadcasting the event on social media. In the course of the
deadliest massacre in modern Egyptian history, Soltan was shot in the arm by
a government sniper. Weeks later, while still recovering from surgery, he
was arrested at his family home in Cairo, as the new government pushed a
nationwide arrest campaign against its opponents.
Once in government custody, Soltan got firsthand experience with the
brutality of the new regime. Despite his broken arm, he was given a
"welcoming party" by his captors upon arriving in prison: He and several
other new prisoners were stripped to their underwear then forced to
repeatedly run through two rows of guards who beat them with batons, whips
and fists. "They deliberately beat me on my broken arm for more two hours,"
Soltan said, adding that his captors would periodically stop to pray in
between torture sessions.
For the next two years Soltan would be shuttled around various prison
facilities. While in jail, Soltan says he witnessed the recruitment efforts
of Islamic State members. "There were people from across the spectrum of
Egyptian society in jail: liberals, Muslim Brotherhood members, leftists,
Salafis, and some people who had pledged allegiance to ISIS," Soltan says.
"Everyone felt depressed and betrayed, except for the ISIS guys. They walked
around with this victorious air and had this patronizing and condescending
attitude towards everyone else."
Among the facilities in which Soltan was incarcerated was the notorious Tora
Prison, where he was kept in an underground dungeon with dozens of other
prisoners. Between regular beatings, humiliation, and torture by guards, the
prisoners would talk to one another. In this grim environment, ISIS members
would attempt to convince others of the justice of their cause. "The ISIS
guys would come and tell everyone these nonviolent means don't work, that
Western countries only care about power and the Egyptian regime only
understands force," Soltan says. "They would say that the world didn't
respect you enough to think you deserve democracy, and now the man who
killed your friends is shaking hands with international leaders who are all
arming and funding his regime."
While the other political factions represented in Egypt's jails grappled
with a seemingly hopeless situation, Islamic State members were consistently
filled with hope and optimism, citing a steady stream of "good news" about
their state-building project in Iraq, Syria and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula,
Soltan says.
When the prisoners would discuss their circumstances, even avowed leftists
found themselves unable to rebut Islamic State members' arguments. "They
would make very simple arguments telling us that the world doesn't care
about values and only understands violence," says Soltan. "Because of the
gravity of the situation they were all in, by the time the ISIS guys were
finished speaking, everyone, the liberals, the Brotherhood people, would be
left completely speechless. When you're in that type of situation and don't
have many options left, for some people these kinds of ideas start to make
sense."
Among the prisoners, Soltan remembers a man named "Ashraf," who had been
accused of jihadi sympathies, and whom the guards had singled out for
especially brutal treatment. "Out of sympathy and a sense of humanity, my
father and I, along with other prisoners, would pool together extra food and
clothing and share it with him," Soltan recalls. "One day, he told us that
during the whole time he had been in jail, my father and me had treated him
with the most kindness of anyone, but he didn't want our gifts anymore. He
said that he didn't want to get too attached to us because once 'his people'
came to Egypt he wasn't going to be able to protect Muslims like us from
what would happen."
While many prisoners succumbed to despair and in some cases radicalization
at the hands of ISIS recruiters, Soltan said he found solace and a sense of
defiance in his hunger strike. As his health began to deteriorate over
months of refusing food, his jailers would begin to taunt him, even leaving
razor blades in his cell and daring him to commit suicide. At one point they
brought a dying man into his cell, making Soltan watch as he slowly expired
on the ground next to him.
Soltan says that during his captivity guards would also periodically allow
ISIS members to come into his cell and talk to him, in what he believes was
an effort to radicalize him. "They would come into my cell and start telling
me this nonviolent stuff like hunger striking doesn't work," Soltan says.
They would "brag that Islamic State was growing and expanding, and that soon
their people would be running Egypt too."
"They were full of confidence," Soltan says, "while everyone else in the
prison felt desperate and hopeless about their future."
Egypt's prisons, notoriously brutal under the military regimes that have
ruled the country throughout the post-colonial era, have in the past served
as a prolific breeding ground for radical movements. Sayyid Qutb, considered
one of the intellectual founders of the modern jihadi movement, wrote his
most incendiary works after being imprisoned and tortured by the regime of
Gamal Abdel Nasser, which executed him in 1966. Al Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri also suffered extreme torture during the years he spent in
Egyptian government prisons, an experience he would cite often in later
years and as having had a formative effect on shaping his worldview.
Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and an expert on
contemporary Islamist movements, says that the brutal suppression pursued by
the Sisi regime in the name of fighting terrorism may ultimately empower
radical groups like the Islamic State. "The number of people behind bars in
Egypt is really unprecedented, these are not just a few thousand people.
With the exception of the Assad regime [in Syria], this is the highest
number of political prisoners in the Middle East that we know of," Hamid
says. "We know that imprisonment in such brutal circumstances often has a
radicalizing effect, but it also represents a kind of networking
opportunity, where people from diverse walks of life suddenly find
themselves behind bars together."
Although the Sisi regime claims to have stabilized the country through its
repressive measures, Hamid says that its achievements are likely to prove
illusory. "The whole myth of authoritarian stability is very appealing to
people, but these heavy-handed tactics that allow no room for political
dissent are already backfiring." Adding that "we are already seeing an
increasingly sophisticated insurgency in the Sinai and escalating terrorist
attacks like the downing of a Russian airliner," Hamid says that the human
rights abuses of the regime and deteriorating security situation are
inextricably related. "As long as ISIS can point to the miserable state of
Egypt's democratic process, it becomes more difficult for others to rebut
their message."
Thanks to an advocacy campaign coordinated in large part by Soltan's sister
Hanaa, this May he was released from prison and returned to the United
States. A picture of a gaunt, emaciated Soltan grinning and raising his fist
in triumph as he was pushed on a wheelchair into Washington's Dulles Airport
went viral around the world. Despite his release however, the other media
activists and journalists sentenced in his case remain behind bars, along
with tens of thousands of other political prisoners, among them Soltan's
father.
Since leaving the country, Soltan's family in Egypt has received threats
over his continuing advocacy on behalf of Egyptian prisoners, including
warnings of further mistreatment by authorities toward his father. Despite
this, Soltan has continued to press for what he says is a vital American
role in helping save Egypt from heading down a disastrous path toward
extremism and civil strife. "We have leverage in Egypt, I'm living proof of
that. Our aid today is given with no strings attached, but we could at least
attach conditions that would compel the government to improve human rights
conditions and revive the democratic process," Soltan says. "We take Sisi's
claims at face value and think we're getting stability, but in reality, the
entire situation is a ticking time bomb."
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Prisoner in Egypt. (photo: AP)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/24/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKBN0TD1P
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ISIS Recruitment Thrives in Brutal Prisons Run by US-Backed Egypt
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
26 November 15
or nearly two years, Mohamed Soltan, a 26-year-old citizen of both Egypt
and America, endured torture, deprivation, and cruelty while locked in the
prisons of Egyptian military dictator Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. In 2013, he was
among thousands arrested in a country-wide crackdown on civil society
activists, journalists, and members of the deposed government following
Sisi's coup and massacre of protestors in Cairo's Raba'a Adawiya Square.
Soltan was released this year after a 400-day hunger strike in which he lost
over 130 pounds and nearly died, saved only by the intervention of the
American government on his behalf. Despite bending to pressure in his case,
the Egyptian regime continues to imprison as many as 41,000 other political
prisoners, recent Human Rights Watch estimates suggest. And Soltan worries
that extremism is incubating in those facilities, where he witnessed and
experienced torture. Today, he says that, through its oppressive practices,
the Sisi government is effectively acting as a "recruiting agent" for
extremist groups like the Islamic State.
"The regime is fostering an environment in their prisons that makes them a
fertile ground for that kind of ideology to flourish," Soltan says. "The
brutality and the overwhelming loss of hope is creating a situation which
fits [the Islamic State's] narrative, and they're using it to try and
recruit people and spread their message."
Despite Soltan's ordeal, some of his own relatives support Sisi. Like many
families in Egypt today, they are starkly divided between support for Sisi's
military regime and for the deposed government of Mohamed Morsi. Soltan's
father, Salah, who was also taken into custody, was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and served in Morsi's government, although Soltan himself
remained aloof from the party. "I was against the policies of Morsi, but I
would've liked to have seen a referendum or early elections instead of a
coup," Soltan says.
The Obama administration has taken a similarly mixed stand, occasionally
criticizing Sisi's human rights abuses even as it continues to send him
roughly $1.5 billion in mostly military aid each year.
Soltan spent most of his life in the United States and moved back to Egypt
near the beginning of 2013 after his mother was diagnosed with cancer. "Over
the course of my life I'd gotten used to the American idea of having
elections for pretty much everything - sheriffs, school board trustees,
judges - so the idea of not even having an elected president was crazy to
me."
On August 14, 2013, the military used deadly force to clear thousands of
protestors who had encamped in Cairo's Raba'a Square in protest against the
new regime. At least 800 people were killed and thousands more wounded,
including Soltan, who was among a group of media activists and journalists
who had been broadcasting the event on social media. In the course of the
deadliest massacre in modern Egyptian history, Soltan was shot in the arm by
a government sniper. Weeks later, while still recovering from surgery, he
was arrested at his family home in Cairo, as the new government pushed a
nationwide arrest campaign against its opponents.
Once in government custody, Soltan got firsthand experience with the
brutality of the new regime. Despite his broken arm, he was given a
"welcoming party" by his captors upon arriving in prison: He and several
other new prisoners were stripped to their underwear then forced to
repeatedly run through two rows of guards who beat them with batons, whips
and fists. "They deliberately beat me on my broken arm for more two hours,"
Soltan said, adding that his captors would periodically stop to pray in
between torture sessions.
For the next two years Soltan would be shuttled around various prison
facilities. While in jail, Soltan says he witnessed the recruitment efforts
of Islamic State members. "There were people from across the spectrum of
Egyptian society in jail: liberals, Muslim Brotherhood members, leftists,
Salafis, and some people who had pledged allegiance to ISIS," Soltan says.
"Everyone felt depressed and betrayed, except for the ISIS guys. They walked
around with this victorious air and had this patronizing and condescending
attitude towards everyone else."
Among the facilities in which Soltan was incarcerated was the notorious Tora
Prison, where he was kept in an underground dungeon with dozens of other
prisoners. Between regular beatings, humiliation, and torture by guards, the
prisoners would talk to one another. In this grim environment, ISIS members
would attempt to convince others of the justice of their cause. "The ISIS
guys would come and tell everyone these nonviolent means don't work, that
Western countries only care about power and the Egyptian regime only
understands force," Soltan says. "They would say that the world didn't
respect you enough to think you deserve democracy, and now the man who
killed your friends is shaking hands with international leaders who are all
arming and funding his regime."
While the other political factions represented in Egypt's jails grappled
with a seemingly hopeless situation, Islamic State members were consistently
filled with hope and optimism, citing a steady stream of "good news" about
their state-building project in Iraq, Syria and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula,
Soltan says.
When the prisoners would discuss their circumstances, even avowed leftists
found themselves unable to rebut Islamic State members' arguments. "They
would make very simple arguments telling us that the world doesn't care
about values and only understands violence," says Soltan. "Because of the
gravity of the situation they were all in, by the time the ISIS guys were
finished speaking, everyone, the liberals, the Brotherhood people, would be
left completely speechless. When you're in that type of situation and don't
have many options left, for some people these kinds of ideas start to make
sense."
Among the prisoners, Soltan remembers a man named "Ashraf," who had been
accused of jihadi sympathies, and whom the guards had singled out for
especially brutal treatment. "Out of sympathy and a sense of humanity, my
father and I, along with other prisoners, would pool together extra food and
clothing and share it with him," Soltan recalls. "One day, he told us that
during the whole time he had been in jail, my father and me had treated him
with the most kindness of anyone, but he didn't want our gifts anymore. He
said that he didn't want to get too attached to us because once 'his people'
came to Egypt he wasn't going to be able to protect Muslims like us from
what would happen."
While many prisoners succumbed to despair and in some cases radicalization
at the hands of ISIS recruiters, Soltan said he found solace and a sense of
defiance in his hunger strike. As his health began to deteriorate over
months of refusing food, his jailers would begin to taunt him, even leaving
razor blades in his cell and daring him to commit suicide. At one point they
brought a dying man into his cell, making Soltan watch as he slowly expired
on the ground next to him.
Soltan says that during his captivity guards would also periodically allow
ISIS members to come into his cell and talk to him, in what he believes was
an effort to radicalize him. "They would come into my cell and start telling
me this nonviolent stuff like hunger striking doesn't work," Soltan says.
They would "brag that Islamic State was growing and expanding, and that soon
their people would be running Egypt too."
"They were full of confidence," Soltan says, "while everyone else in the
prison felt desperate and hopeless about their future."
Egypt's prisons, notoriously brutal under the military regimes that have
ruled the country throughout the post-colonial era, have in the past served
as a prolific breeding ground for radical movements. Sayyid Qutb, considered
one of the intellectual founders of the modern jihadi movement, wrote his
most incendiary works after being imprisoned and tortured by the regime of
Gamal Abdel Nasser, which executed him in 1966. Al Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri also suffered extreme torture during the years he spent in
Egyptian government prisons, an experience he would cite often in later
years and as having had a formative effect on shaping his worldview.
Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and an expert on
contemporary Islamist movements, says that the brutal suppression pursued by
the Sisi regime in the name of fighting terrorism may ultimately empower
radical groups like the Islamic State. "The number of people behind bars in
Egypt is really unprecedented, these are not just a few thousand people.
With the exception of the Assad regime [in Syria], this is the highest
number of political prisoners in the Middle East that we know of," Hamid
says. "We know that imprisonment in such brutal circumstances often has a
radicalizing effect, but it also represents a kind of networking
opportunity, where people from diverse walks of life suddenly find
themselves behind bars together."
Although the Sisi regime claims to have stabilized the country through its
repressive measures, Hamid says that its achievements are likely to prove
illusory. "The whole myth of authoritarian stability is very appealing to
people, but these heavy-handed tactics that allow no room for political
dissent are already backfiring." Adding that "we are already seeing an
increasingly sophisticated insurgency in the Sinai and escalating terrorist
attacks like the downing of a Russian airliner," Hamid says that the human
rights abuses of the regime and deteriorating security situation are
inextricably related. "As long as ISIS can point to the miserable state of
Egypt's democratic process, it becomes more difficult for others to rebut
their message."
Thanks to an advocacy campaign coordinated in large part by Soltan's sister
Hanaa, this May he was released from prison and returned to the United
States. A picture of a gaunt, emaciated Soltan grinning and raising his fist
in triumph as he was pushed on a wheelchair into Washington's Dulles Airport
went viral around the world. Despite his release however, the other media
activists and journalists sentenced in his case remain behind bars, along
with tens of thousands of other political prisoners, among them Soltan's
father.
Since leaving the country, Soltan's family in Egypt has received threats
over his continuing advocacy on behalf of Egyptian prisoners, including
warnings of further mistreatment by authorities toward his father. Despite
this, Soltan has continued to press for what he says is a vital American
role in helping save Egypt from heading down a disastrous path toward
extremism and civil strife. "We have leverage in Egypt, I'm living proof of
that. Our aid today is given with no strings attached, but we could at least
attach conditions that would compel the government to improve human rights
conditions and revive the democratic process," Soltan says. "We take Sisi's
claims at face value and think we're getting stability, but in reality, the
entire situation is a ticking time bomb."
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