The curse of a Cairo torture room

The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report has brought back painful memories. Now everyone knows that our government has "tortured some folks," as President Obama has put it when he wanted to be homey and cute. As someone who was himself tortured in an Egyptian jail, such charm is wasted on me. The emotional and physical details remain vivid in my memory even after more than 40 years.

I was a freshman at Cairo High School. Anti-government protests were a daily routine on Egyptian streets. I was too young to grasp the serious political implication of such events. Like most students my age, I was just glad classes were canceled that day.

Thousands of students poured into the streets from schools all over Cairo. But after shouting a few anti-government slogans, my friends and I moved away from the crowd to a side street in the affluent Garden City suburb.

Without any warning, we were rounded up by the Egyptian secret police (the Mukhabarat), who were zealously trying to fill their daily quota of random arrests.

We were lined up with common criminals in front of the police station. A tall, handsome police colonel standing at the front started shouting the worst kind of profanities at us, and his harsh words quickly extended to our families and parents.

Without thinking, and in a fearful voice, I protested the excessive profanity. Unfortunately, the colonel took issue with my soft protest. What happened after that has changed my life forever and shattered my faith in authority.

The angry colonel stopped his verbal humiliation and without looking at me, he ordered one of his guards to take me away to "the room." The guard knew exactly where to take me: inside the prison, it was a small, dark, smelly, windowless, cold room, stripped naked of any human sign. The dark silence in the room seemed to speak of many broken souls.

I wasn't trying to be a hero, I couldn't muster any words, I couldn't scream or resist. I couldn't understand the colonel's anger and outrage, but I knew he had a free hand to do to me whatever he pleased in that room. He didn't ask my name, he never looked me in the eyes, he never explained my crime. I was a nameless, faceless object.

I wasn't the usual suspect — a communist, a jihadist or a government agitator. This wasn't an interrogation; he sought no information. This wasn't a national security issue; it was a personal insecurity issue. The colonel, unaccustomed to the slightest challenge, needed to break my will. He wanted me to beg for mercy; he needed a complete conquest.

My silence was deafening. As the colonel grew more infuriated, he started getting more creative in his abuse. His relentless physical torture made his early verbal profanity seem like a friendly conversation. There is nothing more humiliating than unjust physical abuse.

I couldn't resist or retaliate, because his savage hitting destroyed my ability to express my pain. At the time, I wished he would mix his severe beating with some verbal humiliation.

After what seemed like an eternity, the beating suddenly stopped.

I found myself standing alone covered with wounds, only to realize for the first time that the guard who had brought me to the room was still there — standing in the corner wiping his tears. His sadness brought a touch of humanity to the torture chamber.

I have often wondered how my brief confrontation with this colonel could have generated so much fury against a helpless young boy. He was not following any orders; he was the whole chain of command. I now realize we were both victims.

I was a victim of unjust violence and abuse. He was a victim of his sadistic intoxication with power. I was physically paralyzed for weeks. He was morally paralyzed for life.

There weren't any digital cameras to record what happened inside the torture room that day. All these years, my own memory has had to carry the entire load alone. This is the real torture.