Egypt: The detainee Mariam Salem died due to medical negligence

Human rights sources said that Maryam Salem, a political detainee in Al-Qanater prison, died on Saturday inside the prison due to the deliberate medical negligence of the prison administration.

Mariam, 32, from North Sinai, was suffering from hepatic fibrosis and a high level of bile. Her health condition in prison deteriorated due to the prevention of treatment and poor health care.

Human rights organizations say the number of political detainees in Egypt has exceeded 60,000 since the army overthrew the late President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013, but the authorities deny these numbers, saying that prisons only include prisoners by judicial orders.

Human Rights Watch accused the Egyptian security services of "failing to kill dissidents and detainees by holding them in inhumane conditions and preventing the drug from being sick to them."

She explained that the authorities do not want to take a serious stand to try to improve the conditions of prisons and places of detention that are not at all appropriate for the human being inside, although some of them become ill as a result of the contamination of places of detention, and the number of detainees inside them is overcrowded, with the patients not receiving adequate health care, and preventing the entry of medication, which is transferred Infection quickly among detainees.

Last January, the Adalah Center issued a report entitled "How to treat a prisoner to death", noting that the number of medical negligence cases inside prisons between 2016 and 2018 reached about 819 cases, and the most prominent diseases suffered by the deceased were cancer, kidney failure, and cirrhosis .

International experts said that the prison system may have led directly to the death of the late president after being placed in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and depriving him of health care as he was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.

Experts added that thousands of non-Morsi are at serious risk, while Egyptian officials denied mistreating prisoners or neglecting their health.