The death toll of Egyptian detainees continues to rise, with the latest death of the detainee Yasser Farouk Al-Mahlawi, who died today after spending more than two and a half years in pretrial detention, pending the supreme state security case No. 1268 of 2019.
On August 3, 2019, the Egyptian authorities arrested Al-Mahlawi with his daughter Alaa, 16, and subjected them to enforced disappearance for 24 days. They were investigated on August 27, at the Supreme State Security Prosecution on charges of joining an outlawed group and financing terrorism, which are fabricated charges used by the Egyptian regime against its critics.
Al-Mahlawi’s daughter stated that she was hearing the screaming of her father while being tortured with electricity, and she was threatened with torture if she did not confess to committing the charges raised against her, before she was released on February 27, 2020, while her father remained in detention.
The death of Al-Mahlawi brings the number of deaths in prisons and Egyptian detention centers since the beginning of this year to 15.
Political detainees face medical negligence inside Egyptian detention centers, which lack the minimum international standards for detention places suitable for humans, where there is overcrowding in cells, malnutrition, lack of hygiene and the spread of insects and pollution, and lack of ventilation.
