Does Egypt have its own Sednaya Prison?

The horrific Sednaya Prison in Syria has thrown the spotlight on the reality of Egypt’s prisons, the files of those forgotten behind bars, and the fate of the victims of torture and forced disappearance during the rule of current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Thousands of Egyptian families fear a repeat of the Sednaya tragedy, given the continued detention of Al-Sisi’s political opponents since the July 2013 coup, including children, women, the ill and elderly. Imprisonment comes after trials that human rights organisations say lack international standards of justice and integrity.

“We don’t want to be like Syria,” said one Egyptian human rights initiative. This expresses the fears that haunt the families of detainees, and at the same time raises such questions as: Are there underground Egyptian prisons? Where are the forcibly disappeared victims? How many have been tortured or face medical negligence? Why doesn’t Egypt open its prisons to international inspections? Does Egypt have its own Sednaya Prison? Do Egyptian prisons adhere to international standards in terms of human rights?

Cemeteries of the living

Under the headline “Sednaya Egypt… the cemeteries of the living”, the London-based NGO Human Rights Egypt drew a map of the country’s notorious prisons, including Badr, Al-Abadiya, Al-Azouli, Burj Al-Arab, Abu Zaabal, Wadi Al-Natrun, Assiut Prison and New Valley. It called on the authorities in Cairo to empty Egyptian prisons of political detainees, and stop the violations committed against opponents of the regime inside these prisons.

There are 78 main prisons spread across Egypt, in addition to hundreds of detention centres and secret cells belonging to the National Security Agency, formerly State Security (an internal intelligence agency). These cells can be located inside police stations, or inside the agency’s headquarters in Egypt’s governorates.

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One eyewitness told me that he worked on the construction of an underground prison cell in Sharqiya Governorate (Nile Delta), but refused to provide further details for fear of exposing his identity.

Political detainees suffer from a number of violations

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) in 2021 estimated the number of political detainees in Egypt at around 65,000. According to the NGO Egyptian Front for Human Rights, political detainees suffer from a number of violations, most notably solitary confinement in disciplinary rooms; beatings or what is known as “tashreefa” (a “welcome” ritual for new prisoners who are beaten with sticks and batons); the cutting off of water and electricity; deprivation of food, medicine, visits and exercise; the use of bright flashlights at night to prevent them from sleeping; round-the-clock surveillance; transfers to distant prisons; and the recycling of cases, meaning continued detention after the legal period of pretrial detention has expired.

Violations may move on to hanging and electric shocks, as was the case with lawyer Shaaban Mohamed, who was subjected to forced disappearance in a facility affiliated with the National Security Agency for six weeks last year, reported Amnesty International.

Elderly and sick people are also held behind bars, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie (81 years old); his deputy Rashad Al-Bayoumi (89); former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh (73); diplomat Mohamed Rifaa Al-Tahtawi (75); former Speaker of the People’s Assembly Mohamed Saad Al-Katatni (72); well-known Imam Hazem Abu Ismail (63); human rights activist Hoda Abdel Moneim (64); and economist Abdel Khaleq Farouk (67).

Egyptians complain that the number of victims of forced disappearance rose to 1,720 between September 2023 and August 2024, while the number of those forcibly disappeared stands at 18,439 since 2013, 65 of whom were killed extrajudicially according to data from the El-Shehab Centre for Human Rights based in London.

In addition to the victims of forced disappearance, the Geneva-based Committee of Justice documented 296 deaths inside Egyptian prisons from January 2020 to June 2024 and submitted the data in a report to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Committee. The Interior Ministry narrative generally claims that detainees or prisoners have died after suffering a heart attack, or as a result of a sharp drop in blood pressure, and accuses the Muslim Brotherhood (classified by the authorities as a “terrorist” organisation) of spreading lies.

Propaganda tours

The Cairo authorities organised a tour this month for a delegation consisting of members of the Egyptian House of Representatives and Senate, in addition to UN and African Commission on Human Rights representatives, to examine the medical and educational services provided to prisoners in the Badr Correctional and Rehabilitation Centres Complex to the north east of Cairo.

Opposition leaders have been imprisoned for more than 11 years on politically-motivated charges

Human rights organisations question the seriousness of these visits, given that visitors are prevented from meeting with opposition leaders who have been imprisoned for more than 11 years on politically-motivated charges including “joining a terrorist group, harming national security, disturbing public peace, spreading false news, and misusing social media.”

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Last year, human rights sources reported that dozens of prisoners attempted suicide inside Badr 3 Prison due to the poor conditions, the ban on visits and being denied permission to receive meals from outside the prison. This was the subject of a complaint submitted by a number of prisoners’ families to the government’s National Council for Human Rights.

Earlier this year, ten human rights organisations expressed their deep concern about the rapid deterioration of conditions inside the Badr Rehabilitation and Reform Centre, stressing that the ongoing violations once again refute the Egyptian government’s claims that the complex is an example of improving prison conditions in the country. The NGOs noted that the prison authorities act with complete impunity and continue their practices which endanger the health and lives of hundreds of prisoners. The organisations that signed the statement were Middle East Democracy Centre (MEDC); HuMena for Human Rights and Civic Engagement; Law and Democracy Support Foundation (LDSF); Egyptian Front for Human Rights; El Nadeem Centre Against Violence and Torture; Refugees Platform in Egypt (RPE); Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF); Sinai Foundation for Human Rights; Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS); and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Peaceful protest

Political researcher Amr Al-Masry said that the Arab Spring dismantled many of the tyrannical rulers’ prisons in the region, and that social media has shed light on some of them. “You may not find an equivalent to Sednaya in the Arab world, but caution is necessary,” he said.

The “prisons sector” is now “community protection sector”, and “prisoners” are now “inmates”

In September 2021, Al-Sisi announced the opening of the largest new prison complex in Wadi El Natrun, one of seven or eight that will opened in Egypt with the aim of “providing livelihoods, medical and humanitarian care for detainees, and treating detainees in a humane manner. The term “prisons sector” has been changed to “community protection sector”, and “prisoners” are now “inmates”. This prompted widespread mockery of the state’s celebration of the opening of new prisons.

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Egyptian opposition members living in the British city of Manchester tried a few days ago to draw attention to Al-Sisi’s prisons, comparing the Egyptian president with his ousted Syrian counterpart. He has, they claimed, turned Egypt into a large prison. Their slogans included “Sisi is Bashar… always imprisoning free people”. The demonstrators demanded that international human rights organisations should be allowed to inspect Egyptian prisons, and that those responsible for torture and violations against political opponents must be held accountable.

Human rights activist Haitham Ghoneim launched a campaign on Facebook to document the data of those forcibly disappeared, calling on their families to post “a recent photo of the missing detainee, their full name, date of birth, date of forced disappearance, place of arrest or disappearance, the last known location of their detention, and any other useful information.” The families engaged in the initiative and posted photos and information about their relatives, most of them young, along with the facts of their disappearances.

Former parliamentarian Mustafa Al-Najjar’s fate is still unknown to his family since his disappearance in 2018. The same can be said about activists and political opponents arrested during the massacres when the Rabaa and Nahda protest sit-ins were dispersed with great violence in August 2013. All of them were supporters of the now late President Mohamed Morsi.

A human rights source who requested anonymity stressed the need to subject Egyptian prisons to human rights and international inspections, enable independent human rights organisations to inspect the National Security Agency headquarters, resolve the issue of pretrial detainees, reveal the fate of victims of forced disappearance, and release all political prisoners immediately.

People on the Egyptian street remain haunted by fears of a repeat of the Sednaya tragedy. Their fears are serious, and they need reassurances and positive steps by the Cairo regime to improve its reputation on the one hand and avoid the fate of Bashar Al-Assad on the other.

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