Hossam has a long, impassioned (as always) post in light of the recent 3-year prison sentence against the Boulaq officers who tortured and sodomized a microbus driver. The case became a0″ public” issue when bloggers broke the story and published a video of the abuse.
I’m currently in the middle of reading a Saban (Brookings) paper, “Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World“. It’s an interesting look at regional regime trends to maintain their grip over the last couple of decades as they grapple internal and external social, political and economic changes.
As Hossam points out:
Our “War on Torture” is by no means over. These three-year prison sentences may be the “harshest” verdict produced by Videogate-related trial, but make no mistake, Islam and Reda, the two sadist animals, will receive a five-star treatment in jail like other police officers and influential figures receive when they get locked up. And that’s if they serve the whole sentence. The regime cronies for sure will also use the trial to claim they are “serious” in their commitment to “human rights.” [emphasis added]
