Abdul Rahman Mohammed - Al Jazeera Net
Egyptian human rights organizations called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect prison conditions in Egypt, and to allow United Nations experts - led by the Special Rapporteur on the Prevention of Torture - to visit them.
In a joint statement, nine human rights organizations expressed grave concern over the escalating number of deaths in Egyptian prisons since the beginning of this year, as a result of the continuation of the policy of denial of health care, the exacerbation of medical neglect for patients and the elderly, severe intransigence and refusal to enter blankets and heavy clothes for detainees in this severe cold .
During the past days, four political detainees, including a woman, died in Egyptian prisons, and a criminal prisoner died while being held at the Luxor Police Station (southern Egypt) due to the deteriorating conditions of detention, in harsh weather conditions.
In their statement, human rights organizations said that inhumane practices and degrading treatment and torture are pushing detainees to protest hunger strikes, in a recent attempt to remove a little injustice from their shoulders, in a way that endangers many of their lives.
Dozens of detainees in Scorpion Prison in Tora Prison Area (south of Cairo) entered an open-ended hunger strike to protest the deaths of detainees due to the prison administration’s intransigence with them by withdrawing heating devices, reducing the number of blankets, confiscating winter clothes, and reducing food quantities, according to a leaked statement.
"The death of at least three detainees in one week in three different prisons, raises the alarm about hundreds of detainees whose relief does not reach the outside world, awaiting a similar fate, as long as Egyptian prisons remain isolated from real censorship," the statement said.
In addition to calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect the conditions of Egypt's prisons, the organizations demanded, in their statement, that national and international specialized NGOs be allowed to visit all places of detention.
It also demanded that United Nations experts - especially the Special Rapporteur on the prevention of torture - be allowed to visit Egypt, and the formation of a national preventive mechanism from independent human rights organizations that would conduct unannounced visits to places of detention, to demonstrate their conditions.
During the past few days, three political detainees have died: the American detainee of Egyptian origin, Mustafa Qassem, in Tora Liman prison, Alaa Eddin Saad, 56, in the Burj Al Arab prison, and the journalist Mahmoud Abdel-Majid Saleh, 46, in Scorpion Prison, as a result of medical negligence Denial of treatment.
The detainee Maryam Salem, 32, died in Al-Qanater prison for women on December 22, due to medical negligence.
The statement of human rights organizations said that the same fate threatens hundreds of male and female detainees in Egyptian prisons, warning against the deliberate medical neglect of the leader of the powerful Egypt Party Abdel Moneim Abu El Fotouh and the human rights Ibrahim Metwally and the activist Israa Abdel Fattah, and the repercussions of the deteriorating health status of the human rights defender Mohamed Al Baqir and political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.
The organizations stated in their statement that a joint human rights report issued at the end of last year revealed the death of 449 prisoners in places of detention between June 2014 and the end of 2018, and the number increased to 917 prisoners until November 2019, an excessive increase during 2019, Among them, 677 were the result of medical negligence, and 136 as a result of torture.
The signatory organizations are: the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, the Freedom Initiative, the Nadim Center, the Baladi Center for Rights and Freedoms, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, and the Foundation for Freedom of Thought and Expression, in addition to the Community for Justice.