Killing of Italian Student, Giulio Regeni, Puts Focus on Egypt’s Stability
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Version 0 of 1. CAIRO — Ever since the brutalized body of a 28-year-old Italian student, Giulio Regeni, was discovered on the side of a road on Feb. 2, lurid theories have abounded about who, or what, was responsible for his death. Egyptian news media accounts, lawmakers and government officials have variously blamed an auto accident, sexual misadventure, drugs, espionage, a mystery assassin, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood — everything, it seems, except the scenario that Washington, Rome and other European capitals think is most likely: that Mr. Regeni was abducted, gruesomely tortured and killed by an element of Egypt’s own security forces. The case is still headline news in Egypt and Italy, and Western officials say the furor has crystallized their concerns about a much broader problem. They worry that escalating political repression and human rights abuses in Egypt are signs of weakness in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s grip on power, potentially threatening the stability of a key Middle Eastern ally. Reports of abductions, torture and brutality by Egypt’s security forces have surged in recent months, prompting debates in several Western countries about how to deal with Egypt. Secretary of State John Kerry met with senior State Department officials last week to consider the issue. The European Parliament passed a stinging resolution calling Mr. Regeni’s death a “chilling message” stemming from the “climate of near-total impunity” surrounding the Egyptian security forces. “Human rights abuses and political repression are driving extremism and terrorism, which are in turn undermining the economy and prospects for a meaningful recovery,” Michele Dunne, a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said about Egypt. Mr. Sisi vowed this week to “spare no effort” to find and punish whoever killed Mr. Regeni. But any hopes that he might look in his own ranks for the culprits were dimmed by remarks he made to La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, suggesting that unnamed enemies committed the crime to “impede relations.” Egypt’s human rights record has come in for considerable criticism since Mr. Sisi came to power in 2013, but things have gotten worse recently. Advocacy groups say that hundreds of people have disappeared into detention centers where torture is common, and anger over police brutality is growing. A protest erupted in one Cairo neighborhood recently after a policeman shot and killed a taxi driver over a fare. Groups that document abuses have come under intense pressure. The authorities have threatened to close the Nadeem Center, which counsels victims of torture. Prominent journalists, lawyers and rights workers have been subjected to travel bans and asset freezes. And an investigation of 37 Egyptian organizations that receive financing from abroad is part of a plan “aimed at exterminating the Egyptian human rights movement,” the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said recently. “The United States is deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Egypt,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Egyptian officials dismiss claims of a human rights crisis, and they vehemently den y having any hand in Mr. Regeni’s death. Egypt is “strongly and unwaveringly committed to respecting human rights and freedoms,” Ahmed Abu Zeid, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said. That resolution carries only symbolic force, and most Western countries remain careful in their public criticism of Egypt, mindful that even the mildest rebuke can draw an angry reaction from a country where the West has deep strategic, economic and counterterrorism interests. American warships frequently pass through the Suez Canal. France sold Egypt two warships and 24 fighter jets last year. The Italian energy company Eni is developing a giant natural gas field in Egyptian waters. More pressingly, the West sees Egypt as a bulwark against the Islamic State, which has an affiliate active in the Sinai Peninsula and has expanded in Libya. “We have to try and work and thread a needle carefully,” Mr. Kerry said last month. Attempts to press Egypt by putting restrictions on the $1.3 billion a year it receives in American military aid have achieved little. One State Department official said that part of the problem was that other agencies like the C.I.A. and Pentagon had not made human rights a priority in dealing with Egypt. “We’re concerned about some mixed messaging coming from the U.S. government,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss private conversations with foreign officials. Still, the outcry over Mr. Regeni, a doctoral candidate at Cambridge University who had come to Egypt to research its labor unions, has brought a new focus to the rights problem. Mr. Regeni disappeared on Jan. 25, when police and security officials were flooding the streets of Cairo to head off possible demonstrations marking the anniversary of the protest movement that drove President Hosni Mubarak from office in 2011. When Mr. Regeni’s body was found nine days later on the outskirts of the city, it bore signs of severe torture: broken ribs and legs, extensive bruising, cigarette burns, removed fingernails and a snapped neck. The nature of the injuries led many Italian officials to conclude that the Egyptian security forces were involved. They also noted some troubling coincidences. On the day the body was found, Mr. Sisi was receiving an Italian trade delegation and Alberto Manenti, Italy’s foreign intelligence chief, was meeting with his Egyptian counterparts in Cairo. Western officials have puzzled over whether some element of Egypt’s security apparatus purposely dumped Mr. Regeni’s body on that day to send a message to Italy, or even to Mr. Sisi. The inner circle surrounding Mr. Sisi is notoriously opaque, but many analysts say they believe he operates as first among equals, a leader whose power is circumscribed by some fiercely autonomous elements of the Egyptian security services. “There are plenty of signs of disorder in the security apparatus,” said Ms. Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment. “After 2011, they were unified for a time against the Muslim Brotherhood. But now they are squabbling among themselves again.” The investigation into Mr. Regeni’s death could hinge on an Italian autopsy report, not yet released, which could answer whether he was tortured over an extended period, which would point to detention by a state security agency. For now, Italian officials are relying on Egyptian cooperation. After a visit to Cairo this week by the chief prosecutor of Rome, Giuseppe Pignatone, Egypt agreed to provide Mr. Regeni’s cellphone records and surveillance footage from the area where he disappeared, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. “This is not just about Regeni,” Ms. Dunne said. “There’s a sense the Egyptians are determined to crush a human rights community that has been there for 30 years. And if they close them down, nobody will know what’s going on.” |