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Detainees are being subjected to a very slow death in Egypt's prisons

August 19, 2015 at 8:50 am

“A prisoner has met his death inside prison or inside such police station due to overcrowding/intense heat/medical carelessness.” This has been more or less routine in news reports in recent weeks which have witnessed the death of scores of political and criminal prisoners as a result of deliberate carelessness and terrible conditions inside Egypt’s prison cells.

The latest of those killed in this way include a criminal held in Gamsa police station in Daqahliyah who had breathing difficulties and a man held at Al-Raml police station in Alexandria only hours after being detained last Friday for participating in a pro-Muslim Brotherhood rally. Three criminals also died inside Shubra Al-Khayma police station last week, as did four detainees in Al-Wadi Al-Jadid Prison.

The children of Issam Al-Iryan, deputy head of the Justice and Freedom Party and a leading figure within the Muslim Brotherhood, who is detained inside Al-Aqrab Prison, have reported the miserable conditions in which their father and many thousands of other Brotherhood detainees are held. “Detainees are being subjected to a very slow death,” wrote Ibrahim Al-Iryan on Facebook. The wing on which his father is held has seen two detainees die recently, he explained. His father was then transferred to a solitary confinement cell that also saw the death of Nabil Al-Mughrabi, a leader in the Jihad Group.

Asmaa Al-Iryan said that her father is extremely weak and is not allowed to take his medication, despite suffering from chronic illnesses. The security agencies within the prison, he told her, “are killing us slowly” and are deliberately keeping detainees in solitary confinement in cells without WC facilities. “I feel that I have had my farewell visit to my father,” she added.

Leaders of Al-Gamaah Al-Islamiyah have issued warnings about the miserable conditions suffered by its detainees inside Egypt’s prisons. Tariq Al-Zumur, the leader of the Building and Development Party that belongs to the group, confirmed on Sunday that the condition of Issam Khayri has deteriorated. The leading figure within Al-Gamaah is undergoing what is described as “medical murder” and deliberate negligence in Turrah Prison.

This comes only days after the death of two leading members of Al-Gamaah Al-Islamiyah in detention centres as a result of “medical negligence”. They were named as Issam Dirbalah, the head of Al-Gamaah’s Shura Council, and Izzat Al-Salamouni, a leading figure within the group.

Party spokesperson Ahmad Al-Iskandarani said that Nasr Abd Al-Salam, the former leader of the party, who has been detained without charge for more than a year at Al-Aqrab Prison, was taken to Qasr Al-Ayni Hospital recently after his health deteriorated sharply.

The conditions endured by the detainees in Egypt have attracted the sympathy of many people including some supporters of the coup. One of those is Imad Al-Din Hussein, the chief editor of Al-Shurooq newspaper, which is quite close to the regime, who called on the government to release all sick and ageing detainees to relieve them from the overcrowding and severe hot weather that is hitting the country at the moment.

Hussein added that his initiative encompasses all political and criminal prisoners. He suggested that those who present a danger to national security should be placed under strict house arrest. This, he believes, will enable the government to respond to all who accuse it of being an accomplice in the murder of sick and ageing detainees or in causing their illnesses to become worse due to the bad conditions inside state prisons.

Journalist Wa’il Al-Abrashi has acknowledged the existence of torture and deliberate killings inside the prisons as a consequence of medical negligence. He stressed that the ministry of the interior is giving ammunition to its critics with such practices and is responsible for the murder of detainees inside prisons by means of exposing them to inhuman conditions.

Al-Abrashi broadcast a video clip of the interior of Shubra Al-Khyama police station showing the death of one of the detainees as a result of torture and severe overcrowding. The cell in question held more than 160 prisoners underground without ventilation in a facility designed to accommodate no more than thirty people.

According to a previous statement issued by the National Council for Human Rights, which is affiliated with the coup authorities, the rate of overcrowding inside detention facilities within Egyptian police stations stands at 300 per cent; inside prisons it has reached 160 per cent.

Human Rights activist Gamal Eid demanded the immediate dismissal and prosecution of the minister of the interior following the death of 11 people held in various police stations during the past few days due to suffocation because of the intense heat. He also demanded that their relatives should receive compensation.

Instead of releasing those held under suspicion or reviewing the cases of those detained unfairly, as promised repeatedly by coup leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Al-Shurooq quoted security sources as saying that the ministry of the interior is considering the construction of a number of new police stations and prisons in order to resolve the overcrowding crisis.

The sources said that the ministry asked the cabinet more than a year ago to provide it with the necessary funding in order to implement this plan, at an expected cost of one billion Egyptian pounds, but has not yet received approval to go ahead with the scheme.

Translated from Arabi21, 17 August, 2015.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.