The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has documented a new death case in detention centers in Egypt, involving a former member of the Egyptian Shura Council (the second chamber of parliament), who died in Al-Minya prison due to deliberate medical negligence and poor detention conditions.
The deceased political prisoner is the former member of the Shura Council, Khaled Sayed Naji, who passed away on Thursday, May 25th, in Al-Minya prison. He was a pharmacist and a medical analysis consultant from Beba Center in Beni Suef Governorate. He had been detained since October 2013 and was sentenced to life imprisonment in a military case in Beni Suef.
Nagy had been prohibited from visits for several years and isolated from the outside world. Furthermore, the prison administration has most of the time prevented the entry of any medication for him.
13 deaths in 2023
Nagy’s death brings the number of death cases documented by CFJ inside detention centers in Egypt since the beginning of 2023 to 13, including 4 cases in the month of May alone. In addition to Nagy, there has been another death case of a political detainee inside Al-Qanater 1 prison in Al-Qanater Al-Khayriyah city, Qalyubia Governorate. The deceased individual is Ashraf Abdel-Alim El-Sayed (55 years old), the General Manager of Egypt Insurance Company. He had been in pretrial detention since April 2022 in connection with a political case and passed away on Sunday, May 21st, 2023.
CFJ has also documented two more death cases of political detainees in 2023, namely Sameh Mohamed Ahmed Mansour, who died due to medical negligence in the Intensive Care Unit of Badr Rehabilitation and Correction Center Hospital, and Madian Ibrahim Mohamed Hassanein (63 years old), a preacher and former leader in the Ansar al-Sharia Brigades organization who passed away at Asyut Hospital while receiving treatment.
Call for probe:
CFJ holds the Egyptian authorities, specifically the Ministry of Interior and the Prison Authority, responsible for those death cases. It demands a transparent, effective, and impartial investigation into those incidents and the identification of those responsible, urging their punishment with the appropriate penalties.
CFJ also calls on the Egyptian authorities to adhere to international standards for detention conditions, ensuring immediate and regular access for detainees to any necessary medical assistance they may require.
Accurate information about death cases during detention in Egypt can be obtained through the Justice Watch Archive service provided by CFJ. It contains information about over 14,000 victims and more than 30,000 violations. It also monitors violations within more than 500 detention centers in Egypt.
