Prisoners of conscience in Egyptian prisons are exposed to deliberate medical neglect, leading to the health deterioration of many of them and putting their lives in danger.
The health condition of the detainee, Dr. Hassan El-Prince, head of the Radiology Department at Alexandria Faculty of Medicine and former Deputy Governor of Alexandria, has seriously deteriorated due to medical negligence and violations practiced against him in prison.
Dr. El-Prince has been detained since August 21, 2013. He has been detained in solitary conferment for years since June 8, 2018 and deprived of visitations.
Burj Al-Arab prison authorities deny El-Prince the required medical treatment, as he suffers from diabetes, severe visual impairment due to cataract disease (white water), severe hearing impairment, and has lost about 20 kilograms of his weight.
Prisoners of conscience suffer from medical neglect in Egyptian detention facilities, which lack international standards for human detention, according to a statement by Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK, which pointed to large overcrowding inside cells where detainees suffer from malnutrition, lack of hygiene and the spread of insects and pollution amid no ventilation and lighting.
AOHR UK has repeatedly warned against the Egyptian authorities’ negligence to the lives of detainees, for whom the government bears responsibility under international laws to provide them with adequate medical treatment, especially in times of epidemics. Since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi assumed power in the country, the Egyptian authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on dissidents and critics, arresting thousands in politically motivated charges, many of whom have been convicted and sentenced in unfair trials or held without trial for years on baseless terrorism-related charges, in very poor detention conditions
