Yesterday, Friday, Egyptian human rights organizations abroad demanded that the country's government stop what it said were "deliberate torture" against prisoners.
This came in a hypothetical press conference, at the conclusion of a human rights campaign for non-governmental organizations, "Al-Shehab, Adalah, Al-Salam International" which was launched on Monday to mark the International Day of Victims of Torture, which is celebrated every year.
"There are deliberate and systematic torture operations in Egypt," said Mahmoud Jaber, director of the Adalah Foundation for Human Rights.
Jaber called for "the Egyptian government to completely stop these operations." He called on his country to ratify an optional protocol to the Convention against Torture, which would allow independent international experts to make periodic visits to places of detention.
In turn, the director of "Peace International" for the protection of human rights, Alaa Abdel Monsef, stressed in the press conference that the problem "lies in the application and respect of those texts and treaties."
For his part, the director of the "Al-Shehab" Center for Human Rights, Khalaf Bayoumi, said at the same conference that the aim of the campaign is in solidarity with the victims of torture, as well as monitoring and documenting their number since July 3, 2013.
Since the summer of 2013, Egypt has been experiencing a political crisis that has persisted since the overthrow of late President Mohamed Morsi, and the subsequent arrests on the background of charges the opposition denies of terrorism and trying to overthrow the government.
It is reported that in November 2019, Hani Georgy, Head of the General Department of Human Rights in the Egyptian Public Prosecutor's Office, told the UN Human Rights Council that "there is no systematic or widespread torture, but rather individual cases that are referred to the criminal courts when their facts are proven."
On the issue of enforced disappearance, Georgy added, "We are investigating allegations of this, and it has been proven from some facts that not every absence is enforced, as some of them were involved in joining terrorist groups outside Egypt, or carried out illegal immigration" without commenting on the circumstances of the other facts.
But the director of "Al-Shehab" confirms that his center counted "7782 people who were subjected to enforced disappearance and torture until the end of 2019".
It was not possible to obtain an immediate comment from the Egyptian authorities.