Egypt Watch

CFJ: Egyptian authorities killed hundreds of Giulio Regenis

The Committee for Justice has said that although Regeni’s murder is still talked about, the Egyptian authorities continue wasting the lives of numerous victims who died from systemic torture and other violations in prisons and detention centres.

The organisation pointed out in a new report titled “The Giulio Regenis of Egypt: Deaths In Custody In Egypt Since 2013” that the ending of the investigation into Regeni’s murder in November 2020 without determining the criminals failed to efface the crime, but it did shed light on systemic torture in Egypt’s prisons.

Executive Director of CFJ Ahmed Mefreh, said: “Regeni was not the only victim of Egyptian authorities. After him came the French citizen Eric Lange, the American James Henry Lawne, and others who were killed in cold blood, and without accountability for their killers and torturers so far, amid suspicious international silence, and an urgent call to press for investigations into the deaths of foreigners and Egyptians inside detention centres in Egypt.”

CFJ added that its reports since 2017 are full of hundreds of victims who died in custody from torture. For example, in the first half of 2017, 81 cases of extrajudicial killings were recorded. According to the report, “deaths due to denial of health care reached 71.9 percent (761/1058) of the total deaths in detention facilities during the reporting period, followed by deaths due to torture, which amounted to 13.6 percent (144/1058), then deaths due to poor conditions of detention 4 2.7 percent (29/1058).”

CFJ concluded the report with several recommendations topped by demanding the Egyptian authorities sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and to activate the constitutional texts against torture, to prosecute the officers and officials who are charged with torture and enforced disappearances, and to hold them accountable.