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Amnesty International stated on Thursday that one of Egypt’s newest prisons, which is being portrayed as a model by the country’s government, has simply repeated “cruel and inhuman circumstances” found in institutions that were previously used to jail political opponents.
As Egypt prepares to host world leaders for the COP27 UN climate change conference the following month, the secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, accused the Egyptian government of attempting to conceal the “awful reality” of its treatment of prisoners, including political dissidents.
“The Badr prison complex opened with much fanfare by the government, as though the new institution represented an improvement to Egypt’s human rights record. Instead, inmates are subjected to the same breaches of human rights that have plagued more traditional institutions consistently “Callamard stated.
In the recorded breaches, which were acquired from the relatives of the inmates or their attorneys, it was said that prisoners did not have access to acceptable amounts of food, clothes, and books and that they were not allowed to visit their families.
The monitoring organization that has its headquarters in London claims that there has been at least one fatality since the beginning of this year when detainees started being moved to the new facility. El-Sayed al-Sayfi, 61 years old, passed away on October 5th, just a few days after he was transferred. Read more: Fixer Upper Couple Divorce: Is It True or Not?
Along with the Wadi al-Natrun Reform and Rehabilitation Centre, which was opened in October of last year, the Badr prison is located about 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of Cairo. This week, the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah became the first person to complete 200 days of hunger strike while being held in prison.
The Egyptian government is adamant that the new facilities represent a significant advancement. Some others believe that they are an attempt to cover up the government’s treatment of its 60,000 political prisoners while they are under the microscope at the climate change summit.
“Ahead of COP27, Egypt’s PR machine is operating on all cylinders to conceal the awful reality in the country’s jails, where prisoners held for political reasons are languishing in horrific conditions. Egypt’s PR machine is operating on all cylinders to conceal the awful reality in the country’s jails “Callamard said.
“However, no amount of public relations can cover up the country’s dismal track record when it comes to human rights, which compels the administration to undertake substantial reform.”
Since then military leader, now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and initiated a crackdown that initially targeted Islamists before spreading to ban any public space for protest, Cairo has received repeated condemnation for its human rights record. Read more: According to the Crawford County Sheriff, a Prisoner Who Took a Bag of Drugs Overdosed and Died
There are over 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt, according to advocacy groups, and many of them are imprisoned in extremely harsh conditions and in overcrowded cells.
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