On Thursday, We Record, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights, and Shehab Centre revealed the death of political detainee Mahmoud Abdel Latif in Wadi Al-Natron 440 Prison after four years in detention.

Abdel Latif, 47, who is married and has four children from Zagazig, was arrested in 2017, and sentenced to five years imprisonment on political charges.

Abdel Latif is the third death in Egypt’s prisons and detention centres within four days, as he was preceded by Khaled Arisha and Salama Barakat. Arisha, who is an English teacher, caught Covid-19 within a month of his arrest, while Barakat died in Tora Prison after two years in pretrial detention.

Abdel Latif is the 37th death in 2021 among political detainees in Egypt’s prisons and detention centres, most of them due to medical negligence. Although the recent months witnessed repeated official statements about the improvement of detention conditions, on top of them was the declaration of the National Strategy for Human Rights, deaths and lack of medical care continue to threaten prisoners.