A mother of three and grandmother of several was blindfolded and beaten repeatedly in detention in Egypt, rights organisation We Record has revealed, before being sexually assaulted and electrocuted on her genitals.
Highlighting the violations committed against women inside detention facilities in Egypt for International Day of Violence Against Women, We Record said the woman – who it did not name – was forcibly disappeared inside the state security headquarters.
She was blindfolded and beaten repeatedly, insulted and sworn at. She was stripped naked, tied to a chair with her hands behind her back for days on end until her whole body was numb.
She was then sexually assaulted and electrocuted on her genitals. The people carrying out the torture threatened to kill her parents and rape her relatives, the organisation added.
Earlier this week We Record documented unprecedented violations against women inside Al-Qanater Prison where security forces along with the Chief Inspector stormed the wing where political detainees were being held and started beating and assaulting them.
READ: Egypt: Political prisoners in Al-Qanater women’s prison violently assaulted
A number of women being held inside Al-Qanater Prison are banned from receiving visitors as a punitive measure either against their own activism or as a way to get at family members.
Five of the detainees were transferred to criminal wards and the rest of the detainees were denied the right to exercise.
Earlier this year, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that five of Egypt’s women’s prisons do not abide by “minimum standards of human life” or “meet the minimum conditions for the treatment of prisoners.”
Over 100 female political prisoners are held in Egypt’s jails due to their opposition to the Sisi regime and are systematically subject to psychological, health and physical violations.
They are held in solitary confinement, denied medical care and abused by prison staff and other detainees.
Between July 2013 and July 2019, 2,762 women have been arrested in Egypt and 125 are currently imprisoned as part of the regime’s unprecedented crackdown on the population.