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Like a Fire in a Forest: ISIS Recruitment in Egypt's Prisons

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Like a Fire in a Forest: ISIS Recruitment in Egypt's Prisons Like a Fire in a Forest ISIS Recruitment in Egypt’s Prisons FEBRUARY 2019 ON HUMAN RIGHTS, the United States must be a beacon. We know that it is not enough to expose and protest Activists fighting for freedom around the globe continue to injustice, so we create the political environment and policy look to us for inspiration and count on us for support. solutions necessary to ensure consistent respect for human Upholding human rights is not only a moral obligation; it’s a rights. Whether we are protecting refugees, combating vital national interest. America is strongest when our policies torture, or defending persecuted minorities, we focus not on and actions match our values. making a point, but on making a difference. For over 30 Human Rights First is an independent advocacy and action years, we’ve built bipartisan coalitions and teamed up with organization that challenges America to live up to its ideals. frontline activists and lawyers to tackle issues that demand We believe American leadership is essential in the struggle American leadership. for human rights so we press the U.S. government and Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan international private companies to respect human rights and the rule of human rights organization based in New York and law. When they don’t, we step in to demand reform, Washington D.C. To maintain our independence, we accept accountability, and justice. Around the world, we work where no government funding. we can best harness American influence to secure core © 2019 Human Rights First All Rights Reserved. freedoms. This report is available online at humanrightsfirst.org Like a Fire in a Forest 1 Executive Summary on Egypt noted, “The most significant human rights issues included…harsh or potentially life- Speaking in Cairo on January 10, 2019, U.S. threatening prison conditions.”5 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Egyptian ISIS wins favor with prisoners by exploiting the President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for “his vigorous humiliation and rage caused by abuse. The group efforts to combat the ongoing threat of terrorism offers the promise of vengeance against Egyptian as well as the radical Islamism that fuels it. His authorities, and protection against both guards leadership, his assertion of leadership, is and other prisoners. As the number of ISIS consistent with Egypt’s historical role as a true prisoners has grown, they have become an leader…Our robust battle against ISIS, al-Qaida, increasingly powerful force inside the penal and other terrorist groups will continue.”1 system, intimidating guards, and in some Pompeo’s praise notwithstanding, Sisi’s brutal instances taking de facto control over parts of crackdown on dissent is fueling ISIS’s growth, as prisons. the group recruits supporters in Egypt’s prisons at This report is based primarily on interviews with an accelerating rate.2 Today, ISIS has effectively ex-prisoners conducted during a trip to Egypt in taken control of parts of the country’s vast prison January 2019. Those interviewed provided system. “It’s like a fire in a forest,” one former detailed, credible, and consistent reports, which prisoner told a Human Rights First researcher.3 included graphic accounts of torture. For security The scope of the problem is vast. As a prisoner reasons, some agreed to speak on the condition released at the end of 2017 told Human Rights that they not be quoted, while others asked to use First, “By the time I left, the radicalizing was assumed names to protect their identities.6 spreading very fast…When you start off with a cell of two hundred people, you could have by the end Sisi is engineering a constitutional change to of a year at least one hundred of them radicalized. extend his presidency. On February 14, 2019, the It was happening everywhere I was detained.”4 Egyptian parliament approved far-reaching measures to change the constitution. The The Egyptian government under Sisi has arrested proposed amendments would allow President Sisi and detained thousands upon thousands of to extend his term until 2034. The result of a Egyptians, many on spurious grounds. Many of referendum is seen as a foregone conclusion in the prisoners are peaceful dissidents, or are apolitical, and others simply fell out with a local police officer. In prison they are likely to face torture or other forms of brutality. As the State Department’s most recent Human Rights Report 1 4 Ibrahim Halawa, interview with Human Rights First, https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2019/01/288408.htm December 2018. 2 ISIS stands for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, though it 5 is also often called ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.ht IS (Islamic State), or Daesh. The terrorist organization came to m#wrapper global prominence in 2013 and 2014. 6 Human Rights First also spoke to women former detainees, 3 Ayman Abdelmeguid, interview with Human Rights First, but they said they had not witnessed ISIS recruitment in the October 2018. women’s prison, so most of the evidence cited here is from men held in various prisons since 2014. HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST Like a Fire in a Forest 2 Sisi’s favor, as little opposition will be tolerated, the restricted funds if he deems doing so to be in and the vote is expected in the coming months.7 the national interest.11 There appears slim chance that Sisi will The appropriation act’s human rights conditions unilaterally curb the repressive policies that are don’t, however, reference prison reform and other fueling the growth of ISIS.8 Nor is his government steps to combat the growth of ISIS in the penal likely to face pressure to do so from the Trump system. In any case, the Egyptian government Administration, which—despite withholding a isn’t meeting the human rights conditions portion of military aid to Egypt in 2017—has gone contained in the legislation, and the United States out its way to praise the Sisi in recent months. once again releasing all available funds would amount to a vote of confidence in a leader whose The national security threat posed by Sisi’s policies are weakening, not strengthening, U.S. policies aren’t lost on certain members of national security. Human Rights First Congress. In June 2017, for example, a bipartisan recommends, therefore, that the United States group of ten senators led by Marco Rubio (R-FL) use military aid and other forms of leverage to and Ben Cardin (D-MD) wrote to President Trump, press Sisi to end arbitrary arrests and torture and pointing out that the denying human rights “risks to improve prison conditions, among other steps enabling Egypt to perpetuate the very sorts of to reform the country’s egregious human rights conditions that help to breed violent extremism situation. and terrorism.”9 A full list of recommendations appears at the end Security aid, however, continues to flow to Egypt, of this report. the second-largest recipient of U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) after Israel. In total, Background Egypt received some $47 billion in FMF since 1979.10 The FY 2019 State and Foreign Human Rights First has for many years reported Operations Appropriations Act, which was signed on human rights violations in Egypt. This report is into law in February 2019 as part of the 2019 based on dozens of interviews conducted over Consolidated Appropriations Act, essentially several months with former prisoners, lawyers, maintains conditions imposed in 2018 on the $1.3 activists, and diplomats. Those interviewed billion in military aid provided annually to Cairo. broadly agreed that the Egyptian government’s Under the FY 2019 law, $300 million of the $1.3 policies were strengthening ISIS. While every billion is subject to certain human rights prisoner’s story is different, the accounts of those conditions, though the legislation includes a who witnessed radicalization first-hand waiver allowing the secretary of State to release demonstrate striking similarities concerning the 7 9 https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/world/middleeast/egypt- releases?ID=7E6423EB-9612-4F6F-A49F-EF4211243298 sisi.html 10 For a history of U.S. military aid to Egypt, see 8 https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-02- https://pomed.org/fact-sheet-u-s-military-assistance-to-egypt- 04/constitutional-proposals-could-allow-sisi-to-stay-in-power- separating-fact-from-fiction/ till-2034-document 11 https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hjres31/BILLS- 116hjres31enr.pdf HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST Like a Fire in a Forest 3 process of recruitment, and what motivates There are no definitive figures available for how prisoners to join ISIS. many people are held on essentially political grounds in Egypt’s prisons and jails. In a TV The term “radicalization” was used by those who interview aired by the CBS news show 60 Minutes spoke to Human Rights First to mean the practice in January 2019, President Sisi claimed that Egypt of conversion to a commitment to use extremist holds no political prisoners, while Human Rights violence, similar to the European Commission’s Watch puts the number at over 60,000.14 In 2016 definition that radicalization “…is understood as a World Prison Brief estimated that around 90,000 complex phenomenon of people embracing prisoners, whether political or not—were held in radical ideology that could lead to the commitment the country’s prisons, and another 16,000 in its of terrorist acts.”12 jails.15 ISIS in Egypt has its roots in Sinai, with the violent Whatever the exact numbers, Egypt’s prison extremist group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis.
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