Egypt closes last center for treatment of alleged torture victims

Egypt closes last center for treatment of alleged torture victims

PanARMENIAN.Net - Egypt has ordered the closure of the country's last remaining center for the treatment and documentation of alleged torture victims.

Officials have said the prominent El Nadeem center had breached unspecified health ministry regulations. But the center’s director said the decision was "politically motivated".

Rights groups have criticized Egypt's government for its crackdown on dissent, and there has been a surge in allegations of torture by officials.

The Cairo-based El Nadeem center has operated since 1993, providing support and counseling to victims of torture.

Aida Seif al-Dawla, the organization’s director, said the group had been given until Monday to close but had vowed to defy the order. "Unless they arrest us all, we will continue to work," the BBC quoted her as saying.

Amnesty International said the move against the El Nadeem center appears to be an "extension of the ongoing crackdown on human rights activists in Egypt".

The BBC says the move comes at a time when enforced disappearances are on the rise, and amid growing concern about allegations of torture by the police and intelligence services.

Human rights groups accuse security forces of torturing detainees and of detaining suspected activists or militant Islamists without reporting their arrests, allegations rejected by the government.

Just two weeks ago, the mutilated corpse of Italian student Guilio Regeni was found by a roadside, amid allegations that he had been kidnapped by security services, which Cairo denied.

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi led the military's overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, following mass protests.

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