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Torture 'systematic' in Egypt
EGYPT has become a police state where citizens receive no protection from torture, human rights groups said in a report.
"The basic feature of human rights in Egypt today is the prevalence of a policy of exception in which those responsible for violations usually escape punishment amid a climate of impunity intentionally created and fostered for several decades," said the report by 16 Egyptian human rights groups published overnight.
"With this policy of impunity gradually becoming the norm, the prerogatives of the security apparatus have been expanded and Egypt has turned into a police state," the report said.
The rights groups, including the Hesham Mubarak Law Center and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, have lashed out at the state for its "systematic" use of torture.