Nadeen Shaker
Egypt
In late March, a letter by jailed Egyptian photojournalist Ahmed Gamal Ziyada is leaked to the press and goes viral. It details four days of his imprisonment in one of the worst prisons in Egypt: Abu Zaabal.
The account begins with a collective disciplinary punishment imposed by the prison’s wardens on students who objected to their fellow inmates’ harassment. The day after, Ziyada is tossed around and prodded with batons and sticks, and then put into solitary confinement, which he describes as follows:
A cell, 3×5 hand-width, with half a blanket, a rotten smelling plastic box to use as a toilet—since it is forbidden to open the cell throughout the duration of the punishment—a dirty bottle of water, a rotten loaf of bread and an equally rotten piece of cheese. No air, no light, no life!
In his last three days, Ziyada grapples with the prison administration, which denies him family visits and gives him a hard time lodging his complaint. The prison doctor declares him “stable,” the torture marks on his body going ignored. Ziyada ends his letter declaring a hunger strike.
In response to his complaint, a delegation from the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) makes a visit to Abu Zaabal prison. It finds that prisoners are badly treated; put into solitary confinement for a week to 16 days at a time; denied access to the toilets; and are not given enough food and drinking water, amongst others things.
Despite asking to meet with 12 prisoners, the committee is allowed access to only five (these were arrested on charges of illegal protesting and riots on campus). NCHR sends its damning report to the prosecutor-general, who denies its allegations, declaring that prisoners have not been physically abused or tortured inside the prison. An interior ministry official tells CBC eXtra that Ziyada’s torture marks are nothing more than the traces of a mole.
What happens inside these prisons in regards to torture and mistreatment is a direct effect of the anti-protest law, which has put thousands in prison for merely protesting. Use of torture is one thing, but it sometimes leads to death—a violation of one’s life.
A recorded 217 out of 359 tortures resulted in death during Mohammed Morsi’s stint as president, compared to 80 deaths of detainees since 3 July 2013 during Sisi’s presidency, according to WikiThawra. Three people died from torture in January and February in the infamous Matariya police station. And the list is piling…