A number of human rights organizations issued a statement on Thursday condemning the ongoing torture of detainees imprisoned at the Wadi al-Gadeed Prison in Upper Egypt.
The statement said that detainees in wards numbers eight and nine, in which citizens serving military sentences are held, are being subjected to ongoing harassment and beatings by police officers responsible for guarding them.
The statement added that dozens of prisoners have been attacked and wounded with sticks and cables.
The prisoners undergoing the abuse were arrested during protests and had been convicted of thuggery in military trials, and are now serving sentences of between five and seven years.
The statement quoted an eyewitness as saying that during a visit to his detained brother in the Wadi al-Gadeed Prison, he saw “four people with multiple injuries and in a poor condition, while another prisoner who appeared to be in a poor condition was being carried on a stretcher.”
The statement went on to say, “Incidents of police officers assaulting detainees and prisoners have become a recurrent reality, even after the revolution.”
In the statement, the organizations demanded the immediate cessation of “oppressive policies, and the investigation of the violence and violations at the Wadi al-Gadeed prison”.
The rights groups said the Interior Ministry was responsible for the safety of prisoners. They stressed the need to end military trials for civilians and to purge the Interior Ministry of corruption.
Ten human rights organizations and movements signed the statement, including the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression, El-Nadim Center for the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
