Tag: prisons

News from Tora

Posted on By 3arabawy

I’ve received updates on the Sinai detainees, currently incarcerated in the Tora Prison compound.

The Sinai 3’s hunger strike in Liman Tora prison has ended sometime last week after it lasted for roughly 20 days. The detainees, I’ve learned, are planning a new hunger strike, but I couldn’t find out when.

More worryingly, I’ve learned that a number of the Sinai detainees in Istiqbal Tora prison, awaiting trial for the Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab bombings, have been given papers that included ready-made confessions, by State Security agents who asked the detainees to memorize them and repeat them in front of the Prosecutor. The detainees, I was also told, were forced to sign and/or stamp papers while they were blindfolded, without being told of their content. One of the detainees for example, I was told, signed at least five papers.

Sinai 3 on hunger strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

The three Sinai defendants sentenced to death by a kangaroo court last November are currently on a hunger strike protesting the verdicts and their prison conditions, according to their families. I could not confirm the exact date for the start of the strike, as the prisoners’ families were only allowed few minute visits, but it seems the strike have started roughly a week or ten days ago.

After banning visits since September, the families of Younis Abu Garir, Osama al-Nakhlawi and Mohammed Jaez Sabbah can only see their sons now once a month, as they wait on death row. Last Thursday, the families stood outside prison from 8am till 2:30pm before they were allowed to see their sons for few minutes. The prison guards forced the families to taste every single dish of food they brought to the prisoners, and refused to let them give the prisoners extra blankets they badly need in their freezing cells.

The three are incarcerated in Liman Tora Prison, in separate cells with criminals. One of the demands the hunger strikers is to be transferred back to Istiqbal Tora, with the rest of the political detainees.

Mubarak’s desert gulag: Detainees commit suicide to escape torture

Posted on By 3arabawy

A new letter sent by a group of detainees in Al-Wadi Al-Gadid Prison to the editor of Torture In Egypt blog details some of the horrors in Mubarak’s gulags.

In their letter, the detainees complained of continuous verbal abuse, severe beatings from prison officers, which finally led to one of the detainees, Ahmad Abdel Sadek Ibrahim, to try committing suicide, after his hands and feet were chained to receive an overdose of beatings. When his life was saved by his mates, the Prison Deputy Sheriff Said el-Faddali punished him with another doze of beatings.

The letter also mentioned another suicide attempt which unfortunately was successful. After he could not put up with the ill-treatment anymore, according to the letter, detainee Muhammad Abdel Fattah Mahmoud, a.k.a. Muhammad Nassar, swallowed metal nails to kill himself. The pain was severe that Muhammad had to slash his wrist to speed up his death. The prison authorities “left him unconscious, bleeding, for a long time before the prison doctor was brought in. The detainee died Tuesday 26 of the current month of December,” the letter charged.

The letter also spoke of the “revolving door” of detentions. The Interior Ministry dodges court orders for the release of detainees, by signing on paper that the detainee was released, while transferring him to a military prison in the nearby oasis, where he’s kept for two weeks. Then, the detainee is brought back to Al-Wadi Al-Gadid Prison, with a new detention order from the Interior Ministry alleging the detainee “was back to suspicious political behavior.”

A number of detainees are on a hunger strike also. The letter accused the prison authorities of not notifying the Prosecutor there were prisoners on a hunger strike–another legal obligation the Interior flushes down the toilet. The letter named detainees including Khaled Abdel Badei’ (on a hunger strike for 15 days now), Ramzi Mowafi (25 days) and Adel el-Sayyed (14 days).

And to make sure the detainees enjoy the Eid ambiance, the prison authorities banned family visits..