Rights Organization Denounces Deaths in Egypt Prisons, Police Stations

Ahmed Mefreh, rights researcher at Geneva-based Alkarama for Human Rights organization, affirmed: "Four killings and deaths of detainees and prisoners in places of detention are a clear evidence that prisons, detention centers and police stations of Egypt’s Ministry of Interior are nothing but mass graves for detainees and prisoners. Everyone takes their turn in a long queue to slow death.

In a press statement Sunday, Mefreh said that the four new cases documented by his rights organization and finally admitted by the Ministry of the Interior were as follows:

1. A citizen called Saad Shihata, 50, was tortured to death at Sallum Police Station in Marsa-Matrouh (in the north-west of Egypt). This detainee’s body showed evident signs of torture, including smashed-up testes. Even worse, the Interior Ministry put pressure on Shihata’s family to stop them from seeking retribution from his killers.

2. Another citizen called Mohamed Rushdie, 27, was left to die in Sidi-Gaber Police Station – Alexandria – by deliberately neglecting his medical needs and ignoring his deteriorating health condition after he suffered a collapse in blood circulation, though fellow detainees called prison officers to help, but those ignored the matter until Rushdie died.

3. A detainee called Ahmed Gadu Khalil, 28, was left to die in Wadi Al-Gadid Prison in unsanitary and squalid conditions of detention amid total medical neglect. He developed a health problem and suffered a collapse in blood circulation that led to his death without receiving the necessary medical care.

4. Yet another detainee, called Esam Ahmed Abdullah, 64, was left to die in Minya Main Prison due to medical negligence and failure to provide necessary health care for his serious health problems. He suffered from a hepatitis C virus infection. Prison authorities denied him adequate treatment until he died.

Mefreh said: "All these deaths happened in less than 48 hours, after the adoption of the new prison regulations approved – and communicated to Egyptian and world public opinion – by the junta’s Interior Minister, who stated that the Ministry of the Interior follows international standards. In fact, its prisons have become mass graves and places of slow murder of prisoners and detainees amid blatant lies and ludicrous claims of 5-star service".

Mefreh added: "The Interior Ministry is fully responsible for preserving the lives of prisoners and detainees. Despite statements from them and new prison regulations, the gravestones of dead prisoners who perished in places of detention continue to tell the truth that cannot be overlooked.

"The public prosecution service is directly responsible for the widespread and systematic killing of detainees and prisoners due to torture, poor living conditions in prisons and poor health care, since the service is biased to the Interior Ministry and its leaders and helps them escape punishment. In fact, one of the prisons commended by the Attorney General in his September 19, 2014 statement was the Minya Main Prison, in which one of the dead prisoners fell due to medical negligence."