In 2009, President Obama declined to undertake or commission an official study to examine the American federal government’s policies and actions related to the capture, detention and treatment of suspected terrorists during the Clinton, Bush and Obama
administrations, saying it was unproductive to “look backwards” rather than forward, then Senator Leahy introduced legislation to establish an independent commission to look into the U.S. behavior in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but Congress did not to act
on it. However, a Constitution Project’s independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon task Force on detainee treatment published a report on April 16, 2013 Based on research over a two-year period, the task force concluded that the United States indisputably engaged in
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (CID) of 9/11 detainees, in violation of U.S. and international law and for which there was no justification. The task force also concluded that the decision to use torture and CID came from top political leaders,
including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The American Senate intelligent committee conducted its own investigation and declassified 525 pages of a 6000 pages’ report that detailed actions by CIA officials that included torturing prisoners, providing misleading or false information about classified CIA programmes to the media, impeding government oversight and internal criticism. These actions after 9/11 was not restricted to the American government, it was not without evidence that European nations have also been accused of restricting civil liberties for terror suspects. Human rights organisations have accused the European Union of facilitating the illegal transport of suspected terrorists to prisons in developing countries where they are likely to undergo torture. Human Rights Watch asserts that many countries used the 9/11 attacks to justify their own hard line treatment of political opponents. Thomas Hammerberg the Swedish recipient of European Civil rights award accused European nations in 2011 of applying laxer checks on state activities that might undermine the human rights of suspected terrorists.
Egypt undergone two mass revolutions since 2011, the second of the two in 2013 was a revolution against the government of the Muslim brotherhood, a group that was legally listed as a terrorist group by multiple countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Syria, in addition to being under scrutiny by US and British governments. The Brothehood is a group that promised the Egyptians to be punished by car bombs and suicide bombers if they toppled Morsi, which they did nevertheless. Since this promise, the brotherhood has attacked the national guard’s headquarters in Cairo in July 2013, assassinated the Egyptian attorney general by car bomb in June 2015, tried to assassinate ex. Mufti Ali Gomaa in August 2015, assassinated brigadier general Hisham Shahin in December 2016 in addition to burning more than 60 Churches, bombing police headquarters, committing 10s of lethal attacks in Sinai and multiple other assassinations in different places in Egypt. It is not surprising then that the 30th of June revolution government is currently less adherent to Human Rights codes versus national security and preemptive counter terrorism. What is surprising to me is to see a news headline that reads: “WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials are discussing whether to withhold a portion of U.S. assistance (needed to combat terrorism) to Egypt to protest Egyptian passage of a law that imposes restrictions on non-governmental organisations, (of which some are used to shade terror financing) a senior administration official said on Wednesday!!!!
