Escalating Hunger Strike at Minya High-Security Prison Amid Rising Abuses Against Detainees and Their Families
Escalating hunger strike at Minya high-security prison amid rising abuses against detainees and their families
Al-Shehab Human Rights Center expresses its deep concern regarding the severe deterioration in the conditions of detainees inside Minya high-security prison. The prison’s sections are witnessing a wave of escalating protests, manifested in a gradual hunger strike from receiving prison rations (prison food). So far, it has involved approximately 20 rooms, with increasing indications that additional numbers of detainees are joining, placing their safety and lives under imminent danger.
Key abuses and detainees’ demands
Humiliating searches of female visitors: subjecting detainees’ families (women) to search procedures of a sensitive nature that affect dignity and privacy, reaching the point of being stripped of clothing by police officers, in violation of the law and international standards.
Mixing categories: demanding the separation of visits for detainees held on political cases from those held in criminal cases, taking into account the nature of each category.
Reducing the length of visits: demanding an increase in the visit time, which currently does not exceed 20 minutes—an amount of time that is entirely insufficient given the difficulty of travel and the long distances that families endure.
Deliberate medical neglect: deterioration of health conditions and the recording of previous deaths, along with preventing or controlling the assumption that essential, life-saving medicines may be brought in for people with chronic illnesses (such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases).
Administrative responsibility and arbitrariness: holding the head of investigations (Ahmed Sidqi) and the prison administration directly responsible for these practices, demanding the cessation of any retaliatory measures, and allowing legal representatives for detainees to be present to convey their demands and hear their complaints.
The Center emphasizes that the right to humane treatment, the prohibition of humiliating or degrading treatment, the provision of medical care, and communication with the outside world are fundamental rights that may not be infringed under the Egyptian Constitution and international treaties. The prison administration and the relevant authorities bear full criminal and legal responsibility for the physical safety and lives of all strikers and detainees.
And Al-Shehab Human Rights Center calls for
The immediate halt to all humiliating or stripping searches against visitors, and the immediate investigation of the reported incidents.
Increasing the length of visits and providing humane conditions that enable families to communicate with their loved ones.
Organizational separation between visits of political detainees and those held in criminal cases.
Health care:
Providing immediate medical care to detainees and urgently allowing the entry of medicines without arbitrariness.
Opening an independent and transparent investigation into the recorded cases of death inside the prison and complaints of medical neglect.
Stopping any retaliatory measures against hunger strikers, and recognizing their legal and peaceful representation to submit complaints.
Opening a neutral investigation into the complaints directed against officials of the prison administration (foremost among them the head of investigations) and holding accountable those responsible for the violations.
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