In The Name of Allah The Most Beneficent the Most Merciful

On the Occasion of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights Day
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Statement " Together Against Torture."

The world and the United nations celebrate today , Saturday 10/12/2005, the memory of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights under the banner "Against Torture." As the Muslim Brotherhood, we believe that Allah, SWT, has honored and dignified man as He says in the Holy Qur’an " WE HAVE HONORED THE CHILDREN OF ADAM." Islam as revealed by God since Adam and until the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) in various scriptures and messages ; especially Judaism, Christianity, and the Islamic faith, has prohibited all forms of psychological and physical humiliation of the human being, even long before international conventions and positive laws did.

At present, the practices of torture –as the most brutal form of humiliation-  are reoccurring again and again  throughout the world in  all states ,  governments , and regimes. The latest example is what happened in the United States –especially after it announced the war on "terrorism" as defined only according the definition by the United States itself tailored to its own interests- as it barred the International Red Cross Committee from communication with the detainees whether those  in secret American prisons, those in well known prisons such as Guantanamo, or those in Arab prisons were suspects are held in countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Syria. In all these cases, detainees get subjected to morbid torture, while they continue to be detained without fair trials or legal stands.

With the advent of the modern nation-state in our Arab countries , the political activists, the intellectuals, the opinion holders , and the opposition forces-not to mention usual criminals- have been subjected to all kinds of horrendous and ugly methods of torture. Only few days ago,  we all saw how the Egyptian State Security Police treated the detainees in Al Giza governorate who were unjustly arrested during the General Elections for the People’s Assembly. This is not to mention all those who died as a result of torture in the State Security Police’s headquarters , such as Moss’ad Qutb, one of the members of our group.

For all of the above we , the Muslim Brotherhood :

1-Join our voices to all the raised voices in our country and worldwide " Against Torture" and all forms of human rights violations such as : unwarranted arrests, arbitrary detentions, exceptional and emergency trials, and civilian brought before and tried by military courts.

2-Call upon all the international organizations and institutions as well as the human rights organizations worldwide to play their role in the prevention and tracking down of all the forms of human rights violations.

3-Ask for fair trials for all the parties that are engaged in torture no matter how long ago their crimes have been committed

4-Affirm that the United States and Europe have to make clear their stances by decisively settling the conflict of principles and interests they are engulfed in with respect to both human rights and democracy.