Report: Increase in torture in detention under Sisi

MEMO | June 8, 2015

There has been an increase in the death rates in detention centres since the military coup in Egypt, a new report has revealed.

In a report entitled “The Official Cemeteries: Extrajudicial Killings in Egyptian detention centres from June 30, 2013 to June 1, 2015“, the monitoring and documentation department of the Egyptian Observatory for Rights and Freedoms stated that the last two years witnessed a major shift in the death rates in the various detention centres in terms of the number of deaths and the cases of death by torture since President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi came to power.

The report noted that the Egyptian security authorities adopted a systematic policy of arbitrarily arresting those opposed to the military government in Egypt. Since 30 June 2013, Egypt has adopted this policy in an unprecedented manner. This systematic policy of arrests has led to the detention of large numbers of people in various detention centres, which can no longer accommodate them due to their large numbers. It has also led the government to use arrests as an important means of oppressing the opposition to the military government in Egypt.

With the increasing number of detainees and the lack of any health care or medical attention, the prisons, detention centres, and questioning centres have become a place for the spiritual and psychological murder of the detainees.

The department also explained that the results of the monitoring and documentation of extrajudicial killings committed inside the various places of detention over the past two years, from 30 June 2013 to early June 2015 are as follows:

• Total number of individuals killed in detention centres: 269
  • Number of politicians killed in detention centres: 92
  • Number of criminals killed in detention centres: 177
• Where these 269 individuals died:
  • Number of individuals killed in prisons: 102
  • Number of individuals killed in police stations: 150
  • Number of individuals killed in courts and prosecutors’ offices: 6
  • Number of individuals killed in military prisons: 2
  • Number of individuals killed in care homes: 2
  • Number of individuals killed in undisclosed places of detention: 7
• Where these 269 individuals died:
  • Number of individuals killed in detention centres during Adly Mansour’s term: 130
  • Number of individuals killed in detention centres since the beginning of Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi’s term: 139
  • Number of individuals killed in detention centres since during Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim’s term after June 30, 2013 until his retirement: 231
  • Number of individuals killed in detention centres since the beginning of Magdy Abdel Ghaffar’s term: 38

The monitoring and documentation department also added that the number of killings and deaths during the first year of Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi’s presidency has undoubtedly demonstrated his continued political support of slowly killing prisoners and detainees inside detention centres, as the first year of his term resulted in the following:

• Number of deaths inside detention centres during Sisi’ term: 139
  • Number of politician who died in detention centres: 31
  • Number of criminal deaths inside detention centres: 108
• Where these 139 individuals died:
  • Number of deaths inside prisons: 39
  • Number of deaths in police stations: 96
  • Number of deaths in courts and prosecutors’ offices: 2
  • Number of deaths in military prisons: 0
  • Number of deaths in care homes: 1
  • Number of deaths in undisclosed places of detention: 1

The department also confirmed that the prisons and detention centres have turned into centres of gradually draining and exhausting individuals both physically and psychologically. The military government in Egypt wants to turn the detainees opposed to the military government in Egypt into remains of creatures that no longer represent humans; creatures depleted of all signs of humanity that become a burden on themselves and society, the report said.

The prisons and detention centres in Egypt have been used by the military government to provide the appropriate conditions conducive to achieving the goal of dehumanising the opposition.

The Egyptian Observatory’s monitoring and documentation department stressed that it prepared this report and collected the data in order to expose this heinous crime and the abnormal death of prisoners and detainees inside the various detention centres.