WASHINGTON: In what may be the first concrete example of the effects of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in Iraq, lawyers and human rights groups in Egypt, a major US ally in the Middle East , say that local police are increasingly resorting to new torture tactics similar to those used by US soldiers in Iraq.

Several lawyers and human rights groups told IPS in phone interviews over the past two weeks that the Egyptian State Security Police used methods that mirrored those in Abu Ghraib, like stripping some detainees naked - a rare practice in Egyptian prisons, even though the country has a long record of human rights abuses and prison torture.

Other practices include taking pictures or threatening to take pictures of prisoners naked, which the groups say was a hugely uncommon occurrence in the past; and blindfolding and handcuffing detainees for long periods of time, which also prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, such as praying five times a day.

But perhaps most disturbing to domestic human rights groups is the growing use of the name "Abu Ghraib" by officers to threaten further torture of detainees, and its significance as a code term for applying electricity to the genital area.

"It is clear that the US has now spread the culture of barbaric torture," said Gamal Tajeldeen Hassan, a lawyer who heads the Sawasya Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Centre in Cairo.

"Torturers here seem now to compare their methods to what happened in Iraq and say 'hey, there are more things that we need to try'. And now they try the most horrendous kinds of torture."

US soldiers and private interrogators working for the US military in Iraq abused prisoners often stripped them naked and took pictures of them. Leaks to the media of those photos, and first-hand reports by US military personnel, led to the scandal over abuse and torture in Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, and many human rights groups warned that the debacle could put a major dent in the human rights cause across the world.

The Egypt developments may come as a speedy vindication of those fears. "There are certainly striking similarities," said Hany Fawzy, a human rights lawyer who attended interviews by the attorney- general's office of abused detainees.

The abuses in Egypt unraveled earlier this month after the Egyptian police arrested some 58 members of the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, whose goal is to set up an Islamic state in Egypt through peaceful means.

Days after the arrests, on June 3, one of the detainees, 43- year-old engineer Akram Zohiri, died in prison, apparently under torture and neglect of his deteriorating health condition.

His death prompted parliamentary demands for an independent inquiry into police brutality. The government of President Hosni Mubarak eventually acceded and approved an investigatory visit - which proved to be short-lived - to a prison facility. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.