INTRODUCTION

With few exceptions, Egypt has failed to hold public officials accountable for their actions that constitute violations of the law and for their abuses of power since at least the 1952 revolution. One of the demands of the January 25, 2011 revolutionaries was accountability for Mubarak and senior officials in his regime. Then, violence and repression set in, as described in Chapter 8. In both of these contexts, accountability essentially failed. What follows in this chapter is an illustrative description of these two separate undertakings and their essential failure.

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE POST–2011 REVOLUTION PERIOD

The lack of transparency and accountability for abusive and repressive actions by the authorities is in large part because of the culture of impunity that has developed in Egypt since at least 1952. Authorities consistently deny allegations of impropriety or abusive conduct, rejecting claims of any wrongdoing, weakness, or mistake for fear of embarrassment, loss of face, or dishonor. This discredits the institutions in question, which depend so much on public credibility in order to carry out important national functions. There are only a few instances of accountability in which prosecutors have indicted police officers who have deliberately killed civilians, used excessive force to kill civilians, engaged in torture (sometimes causing death), and failed to provide protection to those who were in need of medical attention. There have been no known indictment of a military officer, whether in military courts or in ordinary criminal courts, for any conduct arising from the post-2011 events. There has also been no case in which the perpetrator was charged on the basis of command responsibility.

No country that seeks stability and to eventually establish some type of democracy can tolerate the commission of crimes and abuses without providing accountability for the perpetrator and acknowledgment and redress for the victims. This process has to start with transparency about crimes and abuses of power whenever they have been committed.

In the few cases of accountability that have occurred, as described below, individual convictions have typically been followed by appeals that reduced the charges and/or the penalties. Conversely, major incidents that have been documented in published and unpublished governmental commission reports have resulted in very few final convictions.