Press release
Geneva – May 12, 2024
The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has monitored teams have identified two cases of political detainees who died within detention facilities and prisons in Egypt in less than 24 hours, due to deliberate medical neglect and poor living conditions.
The committee stated that the first death was that of political detainee Ashraf Mohamed Osman, from Kafr El-Hamam village in the Basion district of Gharbia Governorate. He passed away on Friday, May 10, 2024, while imprisoned in Badr 1 prison. Osman, a biology teacher at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, was sentenced to 15 years in a military case after being arrested in 2014. He suffered from cancer while in detention, and his treatment was neglected by the prison administration.
The second case was that of political detainee Zohri Ibrahim Abdel Kareem El-Khouly (58 years old) from Delga village in the Deir Mawas district of Minya Governorate. He had been detained since June 6, 2017, and passed away on Saturday, May 11, 2024, due to the harsh conditions of detention and medical neglect.
CFJ condemns the Egyptian authorities’ inhumane treatment of political detainees, holding them fully responsible for these deaths, and calling for impartial, transparent, and effective investigations into the circumstances and accountability of those responsible, to prevent them from escaping punishment.
With these cases, the number of deaths monitored by CFJ within Egyptian prisons and detention centers since the beginning of 2024 has risen to 17. The most recent was the death of former member of parliament for Helwan, El-Mahdi 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 well-known media case of the Helwan police station raid.
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.