Egyptian prisons continue to bring out cases of deaths due to medical negligence and ill-treatment, thus reflecting a prolonged human rights crisis suffered by thousands of political detainees.
The civil engineer, Abdel Fattah Abdel Azim Attia, 70, died on Monday, December 16, 2024, inside the medical centre in Badr Prison.
Attia’s death came after a long struggle with chronic diseases of the liver, heart and kidneys, amid gross medical negligence and deprivation from receiving the necessary treatment or being released on medical grounds to save his life.
Attia, who was being held in pretrial detention on a state security case, was transferred to Badr 3 Prison despite his critical health condition.
As his health deteriorated, he was transferred to the prison medical centre, where he needed regular dialysis sessions and continuous medical care due to his chronic diseases.
Despite his old age, inability to move and complete need of daily assistance; The Egyptian authorities have rejected all requests submitted by his lawyers for a medical release.
Attia’s death is part of a broader context of violations inside Egyptian prisons. This month alone, four political detainees, all victims of harsh detention conditions and deliberate medical negligence, have died.
These recurrent deaths confirm the existence of a systematic policy of medical neglectiii and the lack of the minimum standards of health care for detainees.
The slow killing in prisons is a blatant violation of the Egyptian Constitution, which stipulates in Article 18 that every citizen has the right to health care, including detainees. His death also violates Article 96 of the Prisons Regulation Law, which allows medical release for detainees who are at risk of death due to serious illnesses.
On the international level, Attia’s death constitutes a clear violation of the Nelson Mandela Model Rules, which oblige states to provide full medical care to prisoners and ensure that they are not subjected to any form of inhuman treatment.
The Egyptian authorities’ refusal to grant him medical release and their disregard for his critical health condition reflects their insistence on maintaining the poor conditions of detention at their lowest levels of humanity. The Egyptian authorities must grant medical releases immediately for detainees suffering from chronic diseases or life-threatening health conditions, as well as improving the health infrastructure inside prisons to ensure their compliance with national and international standards.
