* Posted on Friday, February 11, 2011
Can an army famous for abuse really install democracy?
"I think that the Egyptian military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion during this entire episode. And they have acted with great restraint," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week. "And frankly, they have done everything that we have indicated we would hope that they would do. So I would say that they have made a contribution to the evolution of democracy and what we're seeing in Egypt."
However, the picture on the streets, where protesters often are seen fraternizing and snapping pictures with soldiers, is far different from the stories prisoners tell.
Salah said that soldiers cursed at him, refused to return his ID papers or cell phone upon his release and accused him of being an agent of Iran and a foreign spy, a charge that then-Vice President Omar Suleiman also has leveled repeatedly at a pro-democracy movement that experts have described as extraordinarily diverse.
Salah
said he was held at a military police post adjacent to Abdeen Palace, an official presidential residence in downtown Cairo. The morning after his arrest, military police officers bound his wrists to a metal staircase, he said. After beating him with a belt buckle, he said, they took off his clothes and applied electric shocks to his head, neck, back and genitals.
"They put my clothes back on. But I couldn't stop shivering," he recalled.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/11/108595/as-egypts-army-vows-democracy.html#ixzz1Dl5ljDvX