Amnesty International honours anti-torture campaigners

Egyptian anti-torture campaigners working for the Nadeem Centre have been given the Amnesty Human Rights Award at a ceremony in Berlin for their work in documenting and treating torture victims.

"The Nadeem Centre's staff provide medical and psychological care to torture survivors under the most difficult of conditions, and bring to light the grave human rights abuses that are being perpetrated," Amnesty said ahead of the biennial awards on Monday.

Rape victims or those who have suffered from domestic violence can also seek help at the centre, which was founded in 1993.

The head of Amnesty International in Germany, Markus Beeko, accused police and intelligence services in Egypt of "heinous crimes such as torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings."

The government in Cairo denies that it uses torture, but Egyptian authorities have repeatedly interfered with the Nadeem Centre's work, Amnesty said.

The centre described an attempt to shut it down in February as "another step in the ongoing crackdown on human rights defenders in Egypt."    (dpa)