CAIRO -
Human rights organizations said that 3 political prisoners died in Egyptian prisons during the past 48 hours, bringing the death toll among detainees to 38 since the beginning of this year.
For its part, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights said - in a statement yesterday evening, Wednesday - that it had monitored the death of Engineer Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed Ibrahim (63 years old) inside his prison cell in Wadi El-Natrun Prison, after his health deteriorated.
The statement indicated that Ibrahim was an electrical engineer working for self-employment, and held the position of Secretary of the Freedom and Justice Party (subsidiary from the Muslim Brotherhood) in the Suez Governorate (west of Cairo).
Ibrahim was arrested in 2015, and several court rulings were issued against him.
According to the human rights statement, Ibrahim's family announced his death after a long struggle with kidney failure and many other diseases, which became more severe for him as a result of what it described as "bad detention conditions, and a lack of medical and health care."
The Egyptian authorities deny that prisoners were subjected to deliberate medical negligence, and affirm that they provide medical care to all prisoners without exception, and take into account human rights standards.
According to Egyptian human rights organizations, Ibrahim's death is the third in Egyptian prisons within 48 hours only, "which heralds a humanitarian catastrophe," as described by the Egyptian Network for Human Rights.
Yesterday morning, Wednesday, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights announced the death of detainee Magdy Abdo Al-Shabrawy (58 years old), after his health deteriorated, and he breathed his last inside his prison cell in the new "Badr 3" prison, east of Cairo.
A statement by the organization stated that Al-Shabrawi is from the city of Mansoura, Dakahlia Governorate (north of Cairo), and was arrested two years ago to implement a ruling issued against him in absentia in the case known as the "Raba'a sit-in". Morsi in the Egyptian capital in 2013.
And the day before yesterday, Tuesday, Egyptian human rights organizations monitored the death of detainee Shaaban Muhammad Sayed al-Khouli (56 years), a teacher at the Ministry of Education, after he passed away in Sadat Hospital in Menoufia Governorate (north of Cairo), where he suffered from the deterioration of his health in Qanater Prison for men.
Al-Khouli - who is from the Matai Center in Minya Governorate (south) - had suffered from high blood pressure during the past few days, which caused him severe pain. The Qanater prison administration had to refer him to the hospital to breathe his last there, according to the Al-Shehab Center for Human Rights.
According to what was monitored by Egyptian human rights organizations, the number of detainees who died in prisons since the beginning of this year has reached 38 due to what some described as medical negligence and the deteriorating conditions of prisoners.
In conjunction with the International Climate Summit, which Egypt is currently hosting, human rights demands for the release of political prisoners and the improvement of prison conditions have escalated.
In this context, 15 Nobel laureates wrote an open letter calling on governments, environmental groups and companies to pressure the Egyptian government to release thousands of political prisoners.
In addition, 12 Egyptian human rights organizations launched an electronic petition to collect the largest number of signatures of solidarity, in order to press for the opening of civil space and the release of all arbitrarily detained in the country.
The escalation of the detainees' crises prompted the "Freedom of Thought and Expression" Foundation to request the government to make available information on the conditions of places of detention inside prisons, in a research paper at the end of last October.