Tag Allam: New political detainee dies in Egypt prison

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Several human rights organisations have said that political detainee Tag Eddin Abdullah Allam, 49, a businessman who owns Al-Tag Al-Zahby company in Ismailia, has died in prison.

According to We Record, the Egyptian Network and Shehab Centre, Allam was arrested in June 2019 on case 930 of 2019, known in media as “the case of the hope cell,” which included several politicians and businessmen on the background of an attempt to form a parliamentary electoral alliance against the state-sponsored lists. Although he got a release decision in November 2019, Allam was inserted in case 955 of 2020 to extend his detention.

Allam is the third political detainee to die in Egypt’s prisons in August and the 31st in 2021. The first was Mohamed Anwar, 70, from Ismailia, who died in the disreputable Gamsa Public Prison after eight years of detention. Anwar was followed by Khaled Adawy, 48, a businessman from Giza, who died while he was forcibly disappeared in a National Security headquarters. No investigations were ordered over these recurrent deaths of political detainees. Most of them are young and did not suffer serious medical problems.