Press release
Geneva – May 6, 2024
The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has monitored a new death inside a detention center in Egypt, involving a political detainee who passed away at Shubin El Kom Teaching Hospital after being transferred there due to severe deterioration in his health, a result of deliberate medical negligence within his confinement.
CFJ disclosed that the deceased was former People’s Assembly member from Helwan district, El-Mahmady Abdel Maqsoud (79 years old), who passed away on Friday, May 3, 2024. He was arrested by Egyptian security forces on the morning of August 24, 2013, and was sentenced to death along with six others in the widely known case of storming Helwan police station.
In response, CFJ is calling for a neutral, transparent, and thorough investigation into the circumstances of this death and for holding those responsible for the deliberate medical negligence of “El-Mahmady’s” condition accountable.
Furthermore, CFJ urges Egyptian authorities to cease their discriminatory policies towards political detainees, provide them with necessary means of living, and enforce international treaties and conventions concerning the rights of individuals deprived of their liberty.
With this, the number of deaths documented by CFJ within Egypt’s prisons and detention centers in 2024 has risen to 15, with the latest being the death of political detainee, Mohamed Mahmoud Jad (62 years old), from Manshiyet El Salam in Greater Gharbia City, who passed away on Saturday, April 20, 2024, due to medical neglect. He suffered from heart disease and had a stroke which led to his transfer to the prison hospital where he eventually died.
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.
