Author: Nehal El-Sherif
Cairo (dpa) - Egyptian soldiers beat and tortured protesters they arrested at a demonstration near the Defence Ministry in Cairo this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday.
The military also failed to protect protesters from attacks by armed groups, it said.
After protesters clashed with the army on May 4, military officers arrested around 350 protesters, including 10 children and 16 women, according to lawyers.
At least 256 remain in detention and will be brought before military prosecutors, Human Rights Watch said. Many of those who were released gave the rights group in interviews consistent accounts of torture and beatings.
“The brutal beating of both men and women protesters shows that military officers have no sense of limits on what they can do,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.
“The official law enforcement authorities may arrest people where there is evidence of wrongdoing, but it never has the right to beat and torture them,” he added.
A female detainee told reporters at a lawyers' syndicate in Cairo on May 12 that she military police fired at her in a mosque where she had sought refuge.
"Military police came into the mosque and started yelling at us. One soldier pointed a gun at me and next thing I knew he shot at me and the bullet went through my arm," Hagar Abu Khazeem said.
The report comes before a May 23-24 presidential election, the first since the popular revolt that forced Hosny Mubarak to resign.
The ruling military council has said it would transfer power to an elected civilian authority by the end of June.