To the future President
the security
issue : challenges - safeguards - measures - obstacles
published : 17 May 2014
Those who give
up dignity for security will never achieve security so long as they have lost
their dignity
The bridges of trust that have been rebuilt between society and the
police following 30th June 2013 must not be considered an invitation
to abandon the issue of reorganising and restructuring the Interior Ministry,
nor an excuse to single out the Interior Ministry as bearing all responsibility
for reforming the police force without any societal participation. The issue of
reforming the security sector in Egypt
The valuable sacrifices made by police officers, men, and conscripts in
combating terrorist acts - the lengthy column of martyrs to honour and duty -
must not become an excuse for delaying the question of reorganising and
restructuring the Interior Ministry, for fear of hindering efforts to confront
terrorism: the “parallel axes” strategy that has its origins in the phrase “a
hand to build and a hand to bear arms” is the strategy most appropriate to
the aspirations of the Egyptian people, who have been kept waiting through
decades of corruption and tyranny.
This confirms that any delay in the reconstruction, reorganisation, and
restructuring of the police force will lead to a further entrenching of several
negative phenomena that continue to plague the police and to conflict with the
revolutionary situation that Egyptian society is living through. These are
manifested in the violations suffered by citizens in dealing with the numerous
police divisions and security directorates, and instances of brutal treatment
and torture detailed in reports by human-rights organisations, as well as the
rise in the rate of crimes committed and the lack of police presence in the
majority of neighbourhoods throughout the governorates of the Republic. All
this warns us of cracks forming in the bridges of trust created by the alliance
between the police and the people during 30th June 2013, and brings
back the problem of a police force that is closer to the regime than it is to
the people.
Thus, the continued organisation of the Interior Ministry along its
present lines, without addressing the question of reorganisation and
restructuring, may be an obstacle on the path to desired democratic development
in Egypt
Any future President of Egypt should know that the security issue faces
four strategic challenges, requiring the safeguards of three levels of
oversight, in order to implement six tactical measures, taking into account
four categories of obstacle that may confront any attempt to address this
issue, and cause it to falter or prevent it from getting underway.
The challenges at
the strategic level are as follows:
1. Occupational challenges 2.
Structural challenges 3. Administrative challenges 4. Legislative
challenges
The safeguards at
various levels of oversight are as follows:
1. Public oversight 2. Societal
oversight 3. Self-oversight
While the measures
at the tactical level are the following:
1. Purification, accountability, and
oversight 2. Guarantee of civilian nature of the force 3. Transition
from security-based to political administration 4. Transition from
centralised to local administration 5. Addressing “function bloat” 6.
Improving occupational conditions for police personnel
And the obstacles
are as follows:
1. Increase in the degree of internal
resistance to institutional reforms 2. Lack of interest in police reform
on the part of societal administration, as a result of despair and
disappointment 3. Dilemma of police reform in the light of sacrifices
made by the police to combat terrorism 4. The double bias - favouring
the public, and “establishment fanaticism”
Section One:
Strategic challenges
1. Occupational
challenges:
This refers to the need for a precise functional definition of the role
of the police force within society in the areas of “preventative” and
“criminal” policing. The “preventative” role of the police force within society
has been distorted by an expansion of the boundaries of “preventative
policing”, which has had the perverse effect of making the presence of police
on the streets a cause for alarm on the part of citizens, rather than
preserving their feeling of security. The “criminal” role has also been
distorted by the police’s appropriation of the authority more appropriate to a
public prosecutor or attorney-general: overstepping its evidence-collection
role in exercising investigatory powers over suspects, interrogating them
through the application of mental or physical pressure, and extracting forced
confessions.
Consequently, it is necessary to set clear boundaries and “red lines” that
the police must not cross in the course of carrying out their duties in
society, whether “preventative” or “criminal”, lending support to the rule of
law and respect for human rights.
2. Structural challenges
“Structural challenges” refers to the necessity of
restructuring the police force in a way that alters the institutional
structures on which it is based, and which reflect the dependence on a few
security institutions as a means of guaranteeing the continued survival of a
tyrannical state. As a result, measures such as countering “function bloat”,
reviewing levels of leadership and authority, and breaking up the centralised
structure into several different forces, and separating several other
institutions from the Interior Ministry, all form part of institutional reform
that restructures the police force to work in the interest of public security,
in the socio-economic sense, and do not allow it to become mired in “political
security” or the security of the regime.
3. Administrative challenges
“Administrative challenges” refers to the measures
that must be taken to replace styles of administration created by the police
state with opposing practices that result in a state governed by the rule of
law and respect for human rights. Therefore, a shift within the Interior
Ministry from “security-based” to “executive-political” styles of
administration is essential to successfully building police capacities at the
level of the state as a whole. Furthermore, the move from an
excessively-centralised police administration to a local one is vital to the
building of police capacities at the level of individual governorates, which
will be reflected in police performance across the board.
4. Legislative challenges
This refers to the need for legislative amendments
that are not limited solely to the laws regulating the work of the police, but
extend as well to all general or special laws governing “law-enforcement
authorities” in the broadest sense: purifying these laws of overly-flexible
clauses and imprecise expressions that have led to the establishment of a broad
punitive framework permitting the creation of a climate of fear, which in turn
has allowed the police to grow ever bolder in their confrontations with
citizens and other state authorities. Of course, these legislative challenges
must be founded on an underlying legislative philosophy, namely that law is the
sovereign bind which sets people free, and so break conclusively with the
hateful legislative philosophy that views law as a brutal fetter to terrify
people into slavery, trembling at the thought of confrontation with the police
and the authorities.
Section Two: Safeguards (levels of
oversight)
These strategic challenges require the guarantee of
successive levels of oversight, providing a secure environment in which to
carry out the necessary tactical measures.
These safeguards are the following:
1. Public oversight
By means of the firmly-established constitutional
principle of the separation of powers, setting the elected legislative
authority up as a permanent overseer of the actions of the executive through
its police force, and allowing the independent judiciary to carry out all its
functions without being afraid to confront the other state authorities,
including even the police.
2. Societal oversight
Validating the role of civil-society rights
organisations in implementing the principle of societal oversight of the police
force, establishing an independent form of oversight that competes with and
complements that practiced by both the legislative and judicial authorities.
3. Self-oversight
Acknowledging the right of policemen to self-organise
and permitting the establishment of an entity to defend their rights and
regulate their duties, which contributes to the development of a consciousness
on the part of all police personnel of the importance of setting standards of
self-oversight to support their feeling of moral responsibility towards
society; in addition to a reliance on modern techniques of oversight and their
spread to all police headquarters, to act as a “technological eye” trained on
any infractions or violations, contributing to the adoption of sound practices
within the police force.
Section Three: Tactical measures
1. Purification, accountability, and oversight
Purifying the police force of leadership and elements
implicated in crimes against the people, and holding them accountable before
the law to ensure justice for the victims, and to compensate them for the
damage they or their loved ones have suffered; establishing technological,
judicial, parliamentary, and popular mechanisms to oversee police performance,
through the creation of a transitional justice system; forming permanent
supervisory bodies, which sends a message to all police personnel that no one
who fails to uphold the provisions of the law or the principles of human rights
can escape prosecution and punishment, a message to the people affirming that
the police force is subject to the law, and not to orders or training, and a
message to the government making it clear that there is no contradiction
between the “dignity of the state” on one hand, and its total submission to the
rule of law and respect for human rights.
2. Affirmation of the civilian nature of the force
Meaning the introduction of urgent measures to guarantee
the civilian nature of the police force, and to extirpate any military or
paramilitary character it may have acquired, as these have led to its
separation from society, and its use in the hands of a corrupt regime as a tool
for terrorising its citizens. Consequently, amendments must be made to the
system of education in police colleges and institutes so that the duration of
study should be one academic year, and any military training within police
colleges should be abolished along with their system of residence or boarding.
Only students of law colleges should be permitted to enrol, and a number of
police colleges should be set up at the governorate or provincial level.
Moreover, to guarantee the civilian nature of the police force, the system whereby
conscripts are seconded to the police force to perform their military service
must be abolished once and for all.
3. Transition from a security-based to a political administration
Successive regimes have tended to award the post of
Interior Minister “to a police official, to implement a political agenda”, and
the time has come to overturn this tradition, emerging as it does from the
corridors of the police state, and the awarding of the post of Interior
Minister to “a political official, to implement a security agenda”. Moving away
from the practice of depending on a police official to lead the Interior
Ministry, and awarding the post of Interior Minister to a “political minister”
from outside the police force, means moving towards a political programme in
the executive administration, lending a broad political vision to the
administration of police work, and escaping from the confines of a narrow
careerist vision that leans more towards the security establishment than it
does towards society. It also opens the path to dealing with security issues
from a socio-political perspective, binding the Interior Ministry to society’s
agenda and security priorities, rather than imposing its own vision and
priorities on society.
4. Transition from centralised to local administration
A heavily centralised administration in the police
force leads to its own subversion in the service of the current regime;
consequently, the move towards local administration will guarantee the
organisation of the police force according to a local policing model,
helping it to address security problems that differ from one area to the next,
and to fulfil the long-neglected security needs of the public. The principle is
that each governorate should have its own dedicated police force, with
executive control belonging to the local governor, and only technical and
administrative control remaining in the hands of the Interior Ministry. This
should be implemented alongside the adoption of a system of elected local
governors, such that “raising the level of the security services” could become
an element of the candidates’ electoral programmes, encouraging governors to
direct police forces in the service of the citizenry rather than the central
administration. A central force may nevertheless be permitted to exist with a
general jurisdiction over the entire country, charged with pursuing criminal
matters that exceed the capabilities of the local police forces.
5. Combating “function bloat”
The organisational structure of the Interior Ministry suffers
from bloat; police detachments have been installed in many of the country’s
civil institutions, leading to a drain on the human and financial resources
available to the police in non-security matters. Thus, any institutional reform
must split off from the structure of the Interior Ministry any sectors or
general directorates that engage in activities unrelated to security, or
activities that could be carried out by internal security within the various
institutions themselves, and attach them to other ministries or bodies. The
Homeland Security apparatus must also be separated from the Interior Ministry
and annexed to the National Security Organisation; practical experience shows
that the continued presence of this apparatus within the Interior has the
effect of distorting police work to the extent that regime security and
political security have taken precedence over public security in the social and
economic sense. In addition, the Central Security sector must be restructured
and reorganised as units belonging to local police forces at the national
level, and renamed as Rapid Response Units. The basic mission of these units
should be to accompany local police in apprehending dangerous persons;
conducting searches of premises frequented by criminals as well as places in
which narcotics are traded, grown, or produced; and breaking up major
disturbances, in addition to confronting incidents of public unrest in a
professional and non-lethal manner.
6. Developing the working conditions of police personnel
Amending and unifying pay structures according to the
criteria of proportionality and fairness, and supporting a health- and social
care programme; establishing a principle of occupational residency in the
governorate residence offices; and designing an educational programme to alter
the public image of the police.
Section Four: Obstacles
The obstacles are as follows:
1. A rise in the degree of internal resistance to institutional reform
within the police establishment, as a result of fears over fragmentation and
disunity at work
Veiled internal resistance is considered one of the
most serious phenomena confronting any institutional reform process, and
contributing to a rise in the level of this internal resistance have been fears
brought about by the attempts of the Muslim Brotherhood regime - during its
time in power - to disrupt the police force and subvert it in the service of
the Brotherhood’s own political ends, or the attempts of the Salafi movement to
do the same, as well as attempts to fragment or bring down institutions under
the influence of the armed terrorist wings of Islamist movements.
Regrettably, the police leadership - in denying its
duty or attempting to halt reform - has translated these fears into the
language of “chronic margins”, increasing the degree of hidden internal
resistance within the security establishment to any change, even if demanded by
society, under the phobia-like justification of defending national security or
the ruling institutions.
2. Lack of interest in police reform on the part of societal
administration as a result of despair and disappointment, and acceptance of the
logic of security accompanied by repression and humiliation as better than the
total absence of security
The security vacuum following 25th January
2011, resulting from a failure of police discipline as an automatic reaction to
the collapse of the “fear barrier” among citizens; from the inability of the
police to work in any climate other than one of disrespect for human rights and
the rule of law; and from the outbreak of bloody armed confrontations in
neighbouring countries that led to an influx of weapons on the streets, all led
to a frightening decline in security, and in this state the public were faced
with a dilemma: either accept a long-term absence of security, or accept its
quick return accompanied by the same incidents of repression and humiliation as
before.
The continued decline in policing leads therefore to a
reluctance on the part of the societal administration, generally supportive of
security reform, stemming from growing feelings of despair and disappointment,
leading to the pressing need for security taking precedence over police
performance and the extent of its commitment to human rights and the rule of
law.
3. Dilemma of police reform in the light of sacrifices made by police
to combat terrorism
The political Islamist tendency relied, during its
hold on power, on the movements of its armed wings to sow terror within society
and its institutions, as well as political opponents. This led to a wave of
terrorist incidents, which grew in severity with the collapse of the Islamist
project under the marching of the citizenry in the Egyptian street; the police
were thrown into wild confrontation with these terrorist groups and obliged to
make tremendous sacrifices, represented by the growing column of martyrs that
even now shows no sign of reaching an end. Unfortunately, this bitter
confrontation with terrorism brought to the surface a number of mistaken
justifications for delaying the issue of police reorganisation and
restructuring at that time, so as not to hinder the efforts and sacrifices made
in the confrontation with terrorism.
In the light of this dilemma, arising from the heavy
burden of sacrifices made by the police in the fight against terror, it becomes
difficult to promote a number of essential principles that acknowledge the
construction of a police force according to standards that adhere to human
rights and the rule of law to be the most significant first step towards success
in any current or future confrontation with terrorism; in that such a
confrontation does not embrace any illegal practices or measures that might
lead to lasting animosity between the police and any of the factions accused of
supporting terrorism, incubating generations of terrorists. It is important
therefore to legislate for any confrontation with terrorist groups, or states
and organisations that sponsor terror, with a comprehensive anti-terror law
that represents a legal tool in this confrontation,
4. The double bias - favouring the public, and “establishment
fanaticism”
The experience of the Egyptian revolution represents a
clear model against which this double bias may be explained. For while the
police took the side of the citizenry during the “rectifying wave” of the 25th
January revolution on 30th June 2013 and steered it to victory over
the regime, leading to the formation of new bridges of trust between society
and the police that could have been capitalised upon to move towards the
creation of a modern, professional police force, responding to the values and
challenges of the age, the mentality of “establishment fanaticism”, in a
negative sense, treated this newly-acquired confidence either as an invitation
to drop the subject of reorganising and restructuring the police, or to single
out the police force as bearing sole responsibility for reforming the security
apparatus without any participation from society.
The plague of “establishment fanaticism” has therefore
led to an inability to make good use of the confidence gained by the police as
a result of their support for the people, and the waste of an opportunity to
begin the process of reforming the security apparatus at the lowest possible
cost. It has led also to the security establishment’s turning in upon itself
and engaging with society as a kind of faction concerned primarily with
preserving its interests and the interests of its members, isolating it from
society. Thus a gap has formed between the security demands of society, and the
desire of the police to respond to those demands.
ـ ـ ـ ـ ـ ـ ـ
In conclusion: the security issue in Egypt is
currently confronted by four strategic challenges (occupational, structural,
administrative, legislative) requiring three safeguards or levels of oversight
(public - societal - self-), in order to implement six tactical measures,
taking into consideration four kinds of obstacle that may confront this issue
and hinder it or prevent it from getting underway.
It seems therefore that any steps towards police reform
in the light of these obstacles are, as it were, hobbled by the chains of
reality. The tyranny of political Islam in power, like the terror of political
Islam out of power, like the fetters of a security establishment culture that
deals with society with doubt, fear, and fanaticism, like the rout of society
itself before an oppressive dualism that offers police repression in lieu of a
security vacuum.
But despite all that, we must not despair of speaking
with frankness to the future president, parliament, and government of the
importance of police reform, not only in the interest of society, but equally
in the interest of the police force itself, its personnel, its officers, men,
and conscripts.
*****
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