4 deaths, 30 cases of medical negligence in Egypt prisons, rights group says  

Egyptian prisons and detention facilities have seen 161 violations, including four deaths and 30 cases of deliberate medical negligence in September alone, an Egyptian non-governmental rights group said in a statement yesterday.

El Nadeem Centre Against Violence and Torture documented the violations in its monthly report titled ‘Archive of Oppression’. It included a case of individual torture, eight cases of individual harassment, nine cases of collective harassment, 38 cases of enforced disappearance, 18 cases of state violence and 53 cases of renewal of pretrial detention beyond the two-year constitutional period by adding new charges.

The centre also reported 155 cases of citizens who appeared in detention centres following enforced disappearances of varying durations.

Torture methods listed in the report include beatings, forced transfer to a solitary confinement, dragging, electric shocks, tying hands to opposite sides, hanging from legs, throwing feaces in the face of those tortured and blindfolding.

Collective punitive measures imposed in detention facilities include deprivation of prison food, water outages in prison cells for days, banning family visits for years, reducing visitation times and the amounts and types of supplies that family members may give the prisoners, preventing the entry of medicine and clothing into cells, forced shaving of hair, collective beatings, banning of outdoor time and overcrowding in cells.

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