Open message to the Egyptian Minister of Health and Chairperson of the Doctors’ Syndicate

Those are your patients, handcuffed in your hospitals!

Ten Egyptian young men came to Nadim center.. they are among the tens of victims of the 6th of April in Mahalla Kobra city in the Delta who happened to be around or passing through the streets which witnessed the attack launched by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior forces against unarmed Egyptian citizens on the 6th of April, using tear gas, rubber bullets, clubs before delivering them to the police stations where they were subjected to torture, humiliation and detention awaiting their trial, which is ongoing until the date of writing this statement. This statement is not about the trial which involves some of the best and most committed human rights lawyers of the committee for the defense of Egyptian demonstrators. We shall not use it to condemn the police violence which has become a constant component of Egyptians’ daily lives in harmony with the brutal policies adopted by the Mubarak regime and implemented with determination and all disregard for the by its Minister of Interior Habib el Adly.

In this statement we do not address the Minister of Interior, it is an open message to the Minister of Health whose hospitals have become an extension of the ministry of interior.. where doctors seem to have adopted the role of police officers; where the ethics of the medical profession seem to have given way to the code of conduct of the police and state security men.

It is also a statement addressed to the chair of the doctors’ syndicate, who is responsible for the supervision of the professional performance of Egyptian doctors as well as their protection and provision of circumstances that enable them to carry out their profession as we were taught in medical school and not in the butcheries of police stations and state security headquarters.

To both of them, those are the stories of some patients. We record their stories in their own words accompanied in some cases with their pictures, lest you think the stories are fabricated. It is a document to demonstrate the decadence of the medical profession in Egypt, in the hope that you might remember your oath, in the hope that the pride of your profession would drive you to undertake measures that would protect Egyptians whose misfortune drives them to seek help in your hospitals. Those stories deserve a thorough investigation. The least to be done is to cover the expenses of their treatment and rehabilitation. After all they are the victims of an unholy alliance between the ministries of Health and Interior.