News briefing
By: Committee for Justice
Geneva: September 17, 2023
The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has documented the 28th death inside detention centers in Egypt, of a political detainee at Toukh prison in El-Qalyubia. According to CFJ, there are suspicions around his death being due to torture. CFJ’s monitoring team clarified that the deceased was Jumaa Mohamed Ali Hashhash, 63, a retired agricultural engineer, who passed away in Toukh prison in El-Monufia Governorate. The team suspects Hashhash died due to torture by Egyptian security forces, especially since his death followed his arrest by a few days, and he was never presented before any judicial body or prosecution.
Calls for a transparent and impartial investigation:
CFJ holds the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and the Prisons Department fully responsible for this death and calls for transparent and impartial investigations into the circumstances and causes of the deaths, as well as the identification of those responsible and preventing them from impunity. CFJ also urges the Egyptian authorities to respect and implement international agreements and treaties, including the Nelson Mandela Rules for the protection of persons deprived of their liberty, and relevant international conventions and covenants.
28 deaths in 2023:
Thus, the death toll documented by CFJ since the beginning of 2023, inside Egyptian detention centers, has risen to 28. The most recent of which was of a political detainee named Adel Qassem Ahmed Mustafa, from Suez Governorate, who died after less than a month of detention due to deliberate medical neglect.
Accurate information about death cases during detention in Egypt can be obtained through the Justice Watch Archive service provided by CFJ, which contains information about more than 14,000 victims and over 30,000 violations. It also monitors violations inside more than 500 places of detention in Egypt.
