Family members of 17 former Brotherhood leaders and prominent figures have been indefinitely banned from visiting them in Egypt’s infamous Aqrab Prison, relatives reported yesterday.
In a statement, the Association of the Relatives of Al-Aqrab Prison Detainees said: “In an act of unjustified inflexibility, without stating any reasons and in violation of prison law, the Aqrab Prison Administration prohibited many families from visiting their detained relatives for an indefinite period of time. The administration also dismissed the families without allowing the entry of medicine, food, or clothes.”
- Khairat El-Shater
- Abdel Rahim Mohamed Abdel Rahim
- Ahmed Abdel Ati
- Mostafa Al-Ghanimi
- Murad Ali
- Asaad Al-Sheikha
- Osama Yassin
- Essam Al-Haddad
- Gehad El-Haddad
- Salah Soltan
- Mahmoud Ghazlan
- Essam Al-Erian
- Ayman Hudhud
- Saad Khairat El-Shater
- Mohamed Khairat El-Shater
- Ahmed Tharwat Abdel Hamid
- Mostafa Hassan Kamel
The statement noted that “some of those who have been prohibited visitations are detainees sentenced to death or life in prison.”
More than one political and Islamist official has died in Aqrab Prison, which has been the target of local and international human rights criticisms. This includes prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, Farid Ismail, who died as a result of what the Brotherhood described as “medical negligence”. Egypt’s interior ministry rejected the claims saying Ismail died of natural causes.
Detainees in Aqrab Prison and their families demand authorities allow “the entry of food, medicine, and personal items, allowing detainees to go outdoors everyday for more than one hour, allowing the entry of clothes and hygiene items for prisoners, removing barriers during visitations and extending the visitation time to an hour, refraining from listening in on the detainees’ conversations with their families during visitation, transferring sick prisoners to Tora Prison Hospital and giving them the needed medical attention, and prosecuting those responsible for the death of six detainees.”
No comment was obtained from the Egypt security institutions regarding the claims.