Nadeen Shaker

Nadeen Shaker

As part of my internship, I had to research what the prison system in Egypt is like and what it constituted. Although Egypt has strong legislation that regulates life in prison (i.e., the Prisons Law 396/1956 and Prisons Regulations), they are not applied in reality.

Although the government has declared reform and rehabilitation as its main prison strategy, it has not met or respected the requirements that come with that.

This is what Egyptian prisons suffer from:

• Overcrowding

Overcrowding is endemic in Egyptian prisons. Between 2002 and 2015, the number of prisons remained the same, sitting at 42. The number on prisoners, meanwhile, increased, and dramatically jumping in 2014, reaching almost 40,000 prisoners. According to  the tenth annual 2013-2014 report, the National Council for Human Rights reported that prisons surpassed 160% of its capacity, and police stations were holding 300% above their capabilities.

•  Poor healthcare and lack of medical facilities

Prisons can cause serious health deterioration due to a variety of things, including overcrowding, poor nutrition, sanitation, and ventilation, the high likelihood of disease transmission, bad medical infrastructure or slow response time, lack of exercise, etc. On top of that, prisons suffer from lack of healthcare professionals and proper facilities to treat sick patients. In the last year, 90 had died due to poor ventilation.

•  Long pre-trial detentions and sentencing practices than lean towards detention

Egypt suffers from extending a prisoner’s period of detention before going to trial. Prisoners awaiting trial could have their detentions renewed for months whereby renewals should not exceed six months in a misdemeanor case, and 15 months in a criminal case. Long pre-trial detentions are used to prolong the trial period and is in violation of the concept of swift justice. Secondly, most sentencing practices lean towards detention. Although judges give out prison sentences because there alternatives to incarceration such as fining or community service are not supported by statute. Therefore, the sentencing trend in Egypt has favored incarceration.

Nadeen Shaker
Cairo, Egypt

When I first arrived in Egypt, I thought of the anti-protest law as the meta-struggle between the constitution and legislative or administrative measures. Two and a half months later, I realize that the issues the law pose are much greater.

 Here is a quick look at what I think is terribly wrong with the law:

1) It embodies Egypt’s state of exception

The law is complementary and supplementary to a host of other legislation that is used to punish people for protesting. As mentioned in my previous blogs, there are other laws that regulate protest in Egypt. The need to introduce another piece of anti-protest legislation in 2013 reflects how the regime is grabbing all opportunities to stifle opposition and cow transitional justice rights. To make a judgment about the law’s legality , it is enough to look at the circumstances under which it was passed. It was birthed out of an executive which was transitorily given extraordinary powers, and it empowered administrative branches such as the police to regulate all forms of protest, event to the extent of canceling ones they deem a threat to public safety. From then on, the law became the state’s pet, used (or rather, misused) to put thousands behind bars. Sometimes, protest is added as a charge to a long list of trumped-up charges.

 2) It targets anyone and everyone

This summer, I’ve been following the trial of 17 people, mostly members of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, who were accused of illegally organizing a march to lay flowers in Tahrir square on 24 January. The irony is that as they went to testify before the public prosecutor as witnesses in the manslaughter case of 32-year-old protestor Shaimaa Sabbagh, who was killed by a blast of birdshot from police while marching at their side and who finally died in the enveloping arms of her husband, the public prosecutor brought a case against them for illegally protesting. During the first trial’s three short hearings, lawyers filed motions challenging the constitutionality of the law, which was being looked into by the High Administrative Court.

They were granted an acquittal, but the prosecution appealed the decision, and thus the trial dragged further. Though a final verdict will be decided in September, lawyers in court continuously argue that protest is a constitutional right.

3) The law is rapidly increasing the rate of incarceration

According to my own research, the number of prisoners has increased 7.5 times, or 755 in 2014 from the the previous year.

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…