Cairo -

Days after launching the "National Human Rights Strategy," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came out in mid-September, to herald the Egyptians of the imminent opening of the largest prison complex - American-style - in Egypt.

And the Egyptian president announced - in a telephone interview with the "Ninth" program on Egyptian television - that the prison complex will not be the last, saying, "We will open the largest prison complex, and this is one of the 7 or 8 that will be opened, and we are bringing a complete copy of the American version."

The Egyptian president flirted with the advantages of the new prison complex, stressing that he will be keen to provide a decent living and respectful medical and humane care, and receive humane and humane treatment from within, because if a citizen commits a sin, he cannot be punished twice.

Al Jazeera is unique in publishing the details of the huge "new prison complex" on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road, documented by satellite images of the prison complex during different periods of time.

the beginning

The beginning was with the monitoring and verification of news agency "Sanad" on the Al-Jazeera network, the continuous announcements of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior about developing the health and service system inside Egyptian prisons, and seeking to improve the conditions of detainees by establishing a huge prison complex on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road.

Sanad surveyed the geographical area via satellite images at different intervals, and monitored any developments in construction, and any changes in the nature of the area.

Through the approaches of satellite images and linking them to statements;

We reached accurate details - which the official authorities have not yet disclosed - about the new complex, its sections, walls, number of cells, and others.

#Ministry_of_Interior The Community Protection Sector of the Ministry of Interior continues to provide medical care to prison inmates at the level of the Republic https://t.co/88lBFmOM4W pic.twitter.com/2pIqDdbrzH

— Ministry of the Interior (@moiegy) August 6, 2021

The complex in brief:

  • The prison complex is located on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road at km 110, near Sadat City, right next to the "Wadi El-Natrun 2" prison.

  • The construction of the complex began at the end of November 2020, as shown by satellite images, and in just 5 months, most of the prison buildings were built.

  • The area of ​​the prison complex is 1,700,000 square meters;

    This makes it the largest prison ever built in Egypt, and one and a half times the size of Tora prison.

  • The complex is surrounded by a double outer wall in the form of a square with a side length of 1300 meters. The outer wall so far contains 56 watchtowers, which increase with the progress of the construction stages.

  • The inner prison sections are surrounded by a circular wall, on which 47 watchtowers have been built so far. The minimum distance between the inner circular wall and the outer square wall is 400 meters.

  • The inner circle of the complex consists of 8 sections, of which 4 are identical sections with buildings in the shape of (H), and two sections have an identical octagonal design, and a section with two independent buildings, and the prison has one entrance and exit to tightly control the movement of entry and exit.

  • The dormitory (H) consists of two identical buildings, each of which consists of two identical sections as well, and each section consists of 8 cells and 4 rooms for guarding, monitoring and storage.

  • Each building consists of 4 floors, and the cell area ranges between 30 and 45 meters, making the total number of cells for sections (H) 1024 cells.

  • The octagonal shape consists of 4 independent buildings, and the shadow extension in the octagonal building corresponds to that of the (H) section, which means that both designs consist of 4 floors, and the total number of rooms visible in the two sections is 600.

  • Another section on the north side of the circle contains two connected buildings, the smallest of the existing sections.

  • In the middle of the circle is another building that is likely to be for observation due to its ability to reveal all the sections. Within the square wall there is a wide empty space that the nature of its exploitation does not show so far, in addition to a building that is likely to be a mosque in each section of the prison.


cosmetic changes

The announcement of the prison complex, which the Egyptian authorities are about to complete, coincided with the start of changes announced by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior regarding the Prisons Authority, such as changing its name to the Community Protection Sector instead of the Prisons Sector, and changing the name of a prisoner to an inmate.

It also coincided with a campaign of releases of detainees from the civil movement, and promises from decision-makers of more releases of opponents and improvement of conditions for those in detention under constant international human rights pressure.

Despite these releases, a number of political detainees still suffer from lack of access to their basic rights, led by political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, whose lawyers conveyed his threat to commit suicide due to ill-treatment in prison, and former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, whose family complains of his isolation inside prison, and even prevented the weekly letter he was sending to his family.

The Islamist youth arrested since July 2013 also seemed far from the recent releases movement, which was mostly restricted to those with a civil orientation. Even when the Public Prosecution announced the release of preacher Sheikh Mahmoud Shaaban last week, he was not released, and he was imprisoned pending a new case.

#Egypt: It's time for @AlSisiOfficial to release Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been arbitrarily detained for two years in cruel and inhumane conditions to punish him for his human rights activism.

His relatives have expressed concern for his life after he expressed suicidal thoughts, and they have been denied any messages from him since September 19 https://t.co/eZYt9wbTSv pic.twitter.com/WHuCIAbk3l

— Amnesty International (@AmnestyAR) September 29, 2021

# The prosecution decides to re-imprison Sheikh Mahmoud Shaaban 15 days after the decision to release him and deport him to Tora prison, according to what was published by lawyer Khaled Al-Masry pic.twitter.com/Yz1cRGtMAO

- Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) September 30, 2021

contradiction

Human rights organizations described Sisi’s announcement of the new prison complex in conjunction with the launch of the human rights strategy in Egypt as contradictory, stressing that Egypt does not need to build more prisons;

According to the observed figures on the number of prisons and detention centers in Egypt, the Sisi era witnessed the construction of about 36 prisons out of 75 throughout the country, according to the "Committee for Justice" organization.

Six human rights organizations

issued a statement

criticizing Al-Sisi’s announcement of the new prison complex, and expressed their condemnation of the Egyptian President’s statements about the human rights situation in Egypt, and said that the figures issued by several reliable human rights bodies reveal their falsity, and confirm the deterioration of the human rights situation in Egypt in general. And inside detention centers and prisons in particular.

Someone is still opening the largest prison complex in the country, and a missing person locks up the lampposts on the street, and he looks up to scare us and says his origin respects human rights.


De, of course, is a logic retirement match!

— Amr Waked (@amrwaked) September 16, 2021

These are the projects that young people need: a prison complex pic.twitter.com/aS5f7jFSFf

— Mona Seif (@Monasosh) September 15, 2021

This clarifies tangibly the prospects for implementing the "national" human rights strategy.. Additional and larger prisons for a larger number of innocent Egyptians.. https://t.co/GFjWtkX4pb

— Bahey eldin Hassan (@BaheyHassan) September 16, 2021

On the day that Sisi launches what he calls a national strategy for human rights, I recall my previous article on that strategy here 👇 https://t.co/REIOlqOdtY

— Ahmed Mefreh (@AhmedMefreh9) September 11, 2021

what is the secret?

jurists and bloggers feared that the purpose of the new prison complex would be to isolate detainees away from the eyes of human rights organizations to further abuse them and their families, due to the distance and its presence in the heart of the Wadi al-Natrun desert, and the difficulty of communicating with prisoners in the event of violations due to the strict control allowed by its engineering design.

While some saw that the strategic location of the Tora prison complex and the highly guarded Tora prison may be the main reason for building this complex, to transfer detainees to the new prison, and to vacate a large area of ​​land on the banks of the Nile near the upscale neighborhood of Maadi in the Egyptian capital, which means huge investments amounting to to billions.