Detainees of Egypt’s Badr 3 prison have leaked another message in which they detail the inhumane conditions of their detention, and reveal that they have received a death threat directly from the Assistant Minister of Interior.
In the letter, written on 11 March, the detainees confirmed that they have been effectively disappeared, and live without sunlight or fresh air.
“We do not know anything about the outside world. We have not seen our children or our wives for years. We left them as small children, and now they are teenagers and men.”
And, recalling previous leaked messages, they wrote that “the situation is such that dozens of detainees have committed suicide, hoping to he freed from this hell.”
The letter also revealed that the Assistant Minister of Interior personally entered the prison, assaulted them, and threatened them with death,
“You are just 500 people. You will not break with [Egyptian President Abdul Fattah] al-Sisi. We can kill you all in one hour”, the letter reports him as saying.
The detainees appealed to human rights defenders and journalists around the world to acknowledge their condition, and to speak against the torture and other mistreatments that they are suffering.
Over the last period, detainees in Badr 3 have peacefully protested against their conditions, demanding family visits, exercise, the provision of adequate healthcare, and a general improvement of standards in the prison.
According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “all prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings.”
