Egypt | Detention Watch “Violations in Egyptian Places of Detention” Bimonthly report September-October 2019

Following committee for justice’s previous periodic reports on human rights violations against individuals who are under the custody of law enforcement officers and security agencies in the Egyptian places of detention, this report proceeds to provide an analytical overview of the human rights situation in Egypt during September and October 2019; while holding the authorities accountable for their obligations, as mandated by law (Egyptian Constitution, Egyptian Criminal Law, as well as International Human Rights Treaties that Egypt has signed).

The end objective of our periodic reports is to:

• Inform national and international stakeholders of the ongoing conditions inside Egyptian places of detention;
• Engage, or demand the engagement of authorities, into a dialogue that can serve in coherent and consistent strategies and legislation that end these violations; and
• Raise awareness of the ongoing violations of human rights inside places of detention.

Thereof, key findings that Detention Watch has reached- during the period covered by this report- can be summarized as follows:

1. CFJ team documented 796 enforced disappearance cases of people arrested from homes/streets/workplaces in September-October 2019. We documented the appearance of 482 victims before competent authorities, some of whom were released through an official report or, else, unofficially.
2. We documented the enforced disappearance of 8 persons from inside their places of detention, after they had received a release order or a court decision of acquittal, or after they had completed their sentence.
3. 677 individuals were arbitrarily detained, including 77 cases of arbitrary detention from inside the places of detention. Also, we documented the renewed detention of 37 detainees during the report period.
4. Our team documented extra-judicial killing of 102 victims, including 74 victims in incidents that CFJ considers as ‘equivocal killings’, 15 causalities due to ‘firing live ammunitions at civilians’, and 13 deaths inside places of detention.
5. When sorted by the place of occurrence, 3 deaths occurred in 3 prisons, 7 deaths in 5 police stations, one suicide case in a courtroom, and another in a Security Camp. Our team could not identify the location of one death case during the report duration.
6. As per the cause of death, 6 deaths have resulted from ‘denial of medical care’, torture claimed 4 lives, and suicide has led to three
7. Our team note that 197 documented violations fall under ‘poor detention conditions’ inside places of detention. Damanhour General Prison (Ab’adiyya) heads the list of documented ‘poor detention conditions’ with 72 violations. In addition, we documented the deportation/alienation of 11 detainees to places of detention located far away from their residence places.
8. We documented 44 victims of ‘denial of medical care’ in 15 places of detention during the report period. Four hunger strikes (in protest of violations) have occurred during the report duration.
9. Seven torture incidents of individual detainees and two of group detainees occurred in different places of detention, all of which undermined the rights of 11 victims.

CFJ also documented violations against groups of a special status:

lawyers

• • 16 lawyers were forcibly disappeared. We documented the appearance of 15, of them, before competent authorities. One of them is a member of ‘the committee of the Defense of prisoners of conscience in his governorate, while 9 lawyers were subjected to arbitrary detention.
  • Inside places of detention, we documented the arbitrary detention and ‘poor detention conditions’ violations against three victims: one member of a political party, a university student, and a political activist.

journalists

• • 14 journalists were forcibly disappeared; we documented the appearance of only two of them later before competent authorities. Also, we documented the arbitrary detention of another journalist.
  • Inside places of detention, we documented violations against one journalist and two rights lawyers. Violations varied between arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, denial of medical care, renewed detention, and obstinacy in implementing a release order.

students

• • 59 students were forcibly disappeared. Of whom, we documented the appearance of only 24 students, while we could not identify the whereabouts of the remaining 35 students. Also, we documented the arbitrary detention of one student.

women

• As for women, we documented violations against 97 victims, of whom 82 were forcibly disappeared. When we examined their occupation status, we identified two students, two journalists, two lawyers, and one rights activist among the victims. We noticed the appearance of only 73 women while we could not identify the whereabout of the remaining victims.
• 8 women were arbitrarily detained, including one lawyer, and two rights activists.
• In Sinai, we documented the extra-judicial killings of seven women.
• four women were subjected to violations under ‘poor detention conditions’. Some of these violations occurred against two women in Qanater Women prison, of whom one is a rights activist, while the later started a hunger strike in protest of the violations.