Detainees continue to die in Egyptian prisons due to torture, the denial of adequate health provisions, and other forms of mistreatment.
It has been reported that detainee Muhammad Mustafa Badawi has died in Wadi al-Natrun prison, as a result of deliberate medical negligence.
Badawi suffered from kidney failure but was denied proper treatment and died as a consequence.
With his death, the number of detainees to have died in Egyptian prisons and other places of detention this year rose to five. The other four victims are Muhammad al-Sayyid al-Mursi, who died as a result of torture on 6 March, only 11 days after his arrest; Saad Mahmoud Abdel-Ghani Khedr, a scientist and trade unionist, who died in Burj al-Arab prison on 26 February; and Mahmoud al-Didamouni, who died in Zagazig police station on 12 February.
Al-Didamouni’s death was the second this year in the same police station, following Sameh Tolba’s death there on 26 January, after he was denied proper medical treatment.
Despite the high number of deaths across Egypt’s prison system, the regime continues to deny the Red Cross and similar organisation access to its facilities.
According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “all prisoners shall be treated with respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings.”
