CAIRO (Middle East Eye/Arab News) – A group of Egyptian detainees launched a hunger strike against their poor imprisonment conditions, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news website has reported.
The prisoners at Alexandria’s Borg el-Arab prison are protesting alleged violations against them, including banning families from bringing them food, restricting access to medications, and limiting access to the canteen, according to the El Shehab Center for Human Rights (SHR).
The hunger strikes were confirmed by the detainees’ relatives.
The families said at least seven prisoners have attempted suicide amid the poor detention conditions, the SHR added.
Borg el-Arab prison, established in 2004, is located in a desert area west of the Alexandria governorate.
The Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) has recorded that over a nine-month period Egyptian courts have renewed the pre-trial detention of over 20,000 people on terror related charges.
Throughout this period, Egypt’s general prosecution has only released three people.
Often, when judges issue decisions to extend prisoners’ pre-trial detention they do so without presenting credible evidence, without defendants even being in court and do not allow lawyers to defend their clients.
Amnesty International has previously said that Egyptian authorities routinely use pretrial detention to punish perceived political opponents, activists, or human rights defenders.
Terror-related charges are often leveled against opposition members, former politicians and businessmen and women who have found their assets frozen, that they have been banned from travelling and some have been given lengthy prison sentences.
Human rights lawyer Mohamed El-Baqer has spent over three years in prison, has been added to the terror list and when he is released will possibly be debarred and banned from travelling.
The recent arrest of El-Baqer’s wife, who wrote on Twitter that he had been beaten, gagged and stripped of his clothes whilst in prison, underscored the harsh conditions that political prisoners are held in.