Egypt Watch

Abdel Mohsen Fouad and Ahmed Amr: Two Egyptian detainees pass away in prison

Egyptian human rights organizations revealed the death of detainee Abdel Mohsen Fouad, from Alexandria, inside Abu Zaabal Prison Hospital in Cairo, resulting from medical negligence. Only days later did his family learn. Fouad has been in pretrial detention since August 2021, pending Case 627 of 2021. They also revealed the death of detainee Ahmed Amr (59 years old) inside Wadi al-Natrun Prison.

The security forces had arrested Amr on September 19, 2013, and he was sentenced to death before the sentence was overturned and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In February, the Egyptian Network, the We Record platform, and the Al-Shehab Center announced the death of the detainee Tamer Fikri Gamal El-Din (50 years old), a preacher at a mosque in Kerdasa, Giza, who was serving a ten-year prison sentence. The Al-Shehab Center held the Ministry of Interior responsible for the death and demanded an investigation into its circumstances and the release of all detainees.

Fikri is the third death in an Egyptian prison this February, after the death of detainee Mohamed Abdel Hamid Ahmed Abdel Hafez, after his health deteriorated due to a diabetic coma. Security forces arrested Abdel Hafez in May 2015 and five others, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017. According to We Record, the sentence was reduced to 15 years in 2019 in a trial that lacked standards of justice.

2021 witnessed the death of 60 detainees inside prisons and various detention centres, including 52 political prisoners, eight criminals, six children, and 277 women subjected to detention and enforced disappearance.

2020 recorded 79 cases of medical negligence in various prisons and detention centres in Egypt, according to the Egyptian Network for Human Rights. About 774 detainees died in various detention facilities during the past seven years, including 73 in 2013, 166 in 2014, 185 in 2015, 121 in 2016, 80 in 2017, 36 in 2018, and 40 in 2019.