Leaked video shows torture in Cairo police station

A video leaked to the Guardian is believed to show Egyptian police torturing prisoners at a police station in Cairo.

In one of the videos, which is thought to have been recorded in the Salam neighbourhood of the Egyptian capital, the detainees are hung from a metal grate by their arms.

In the other detainees have wounds across their chests and back which they say were inflicted by officers hitting them with sticks.

In 2018, Carnegie said that increasing torture being practiced by officials in Egypt is a sign of the growing impunity among the country’s security apparatus.

This is compounded by the lack of credibility of the judiciary and the breakdown of the rule of law.

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Police officers try and force confessions out of detainees by torturing them, however, these confessions cannot be considered real evidence because of how they were obtained.

Regularly officers have gone too far and killed inmates whilst torturing them, including shop owner Islam Al-Ostraly, who was tortured to death in 2020 after being arrested because he refused to pay a bribe.

Al-Ostraly’s family was told he died of circulatory failure, but his body bore signs of torture including burns and scars. Following the news of his death protests broke out in the Moneeb neighbourhood where he lived.

In 2018 police officers detained 22-year-old Afroto and beat him to death whilst he was in custody and again hundreds of people gathered outside Moqattam police station to demonstrate.

In 2015 former Egyptian political prisoner Mohamed Soltan, who said he was “subjected to more torture than anyone should have to endure” appealed to the West to speak out and not to turn a blind eye on human rights violations in Egypt.