Egypt: Detainees appeal to President Sisi to intervene after torture scandal
Days after a video of them complaining about being tortured and ill-treated in a police station, several Egyptian inmates say that they have been beaten, threatened, and banned from all communications with their families by the very officers they had accused of torturing them.
Last month, videos seen by Middle East Eye appeared to show the ill-treatment and abuse of detainees by security forces in al-Salam Awel Police Station, which lies in the impoverished southeast Cairo district of al-Salam. MEE could not confirm the time when the videos were taken.
'We are appealing to you Mr President, we don’t care about any other country. We are appealing to you, because you should be like our father and our guardian. And every guardian is responsible for his people'
- Inmate at al-Salam Awel police station
Shortly following the publication of the videos by MEE and some Arab online media, the prisoners were banned from any visits from their families, who told MEE that they have not been able to reach their relatives and fear that they might have been disappeared and subjected to more torture.
After reports of their disappearance, activists published new video testimonies by inmates in the same police station, appealing to President Abdelfattah el-Sisi for help.
One of the inmates, who was featured in the first videos, told MEE on Saturday that two of the officers previously accused of abusing prisoners, Ahmed Badawi and Ali Kassab, “continued beating them as if nothing happened”.
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Activists have published pictures of the accused officers Badawi, Kasab, and Amro Ezzat.
MEE confirmed that all three officers are active police captains working in the station's investigation bureau. One of them denied the allegations, another refused to comment, and a third did not answer MEE's calls.
Visits banned
"They banned all visits and entry of food after they watched the videos, even after we lodged official complaints with the Prosecutor General,” the prisoner, who did not want to provide his name in order to protect his identity, told MEE.
In the new leaked video, a detainee points to the wrists of fellow inmates who have a tattoo of a cross.
“They say that we are from the Muslim Brotherhood. Is this a Brotherhood member, Mr President?” he said as he pointed to two Christian inmates.
“Mr President, when we thought to complain, we complained to you not to anyone else.”
“We are appealing to you [Mr President], we don’t care about any other country. We are appealing to you, because you should be like our father and our guardian. And every guardian is responsible for his people," he said. “Mr President, on Judgement Day, God will ask you about us."
“I beg you, rescue us”, the prisoner said, adding that “we do not know where they will take us.
"This is our last message and the last you will hear from us. They told us to pack our things and that we will leave.
"Save us Mr President."
Last week, MEE reported that the detained men - who are kept in the Al-Salam Awel police station that is embroiled in an abuse scandal - have lost all contact with the outside world, raising fears that they have been forcibly disappeared.
One source previously told MEE they believe the detainees have been removed from the police station in order to prepare them to deny the torture allegations that began the scandal.
While the interior ministry refrained from commenting on the videos of abuse, minutes after the new videos were circulated, the ministry issued a short statement saying the video testimonies were fabricated and that they are "attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood" to spread lies about ill-treatment in the Egyptian police facility.
Despite the widespread publicity the torture story had on social media networks, Egyptian media has been silent about the incident, with very few even reporting the ministry's statement.
Sources working with the ministry's media officer previously told MEE that the ministry might publish a video statement showing some inmates confessing that they were injured because they were on drugs and that they were attacking each other over control of the prison cell.
Amid celebrations of Egypt gaining second place in the Afcon football championship, the prisoners' disappearance story barely made it to social media discussions by Egyptian users.
'Human rights strategy' mocked
On Thursday, the ministry of interior published a five minute propaganda video explaining Egypt’s commitment to the recently announced National Strategy for Human Rights.
The video showed clean, spacious prison cells, as well as inmates receiving health care, decent treatment, and hot food. It was widely mocked by activists on social media.
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said the strategy was aimed at "entrenching the tragic state of affairs and deflecting international criticism".
Meanwhile, incidents of abuse in Egyptian prisons continue to be reported.
Last week, a man named Mohamed Medhat published a video of himself crying as he recalled how he was arrested and ill treated in Al-Agouza police station in Giza.
The man was arrested following a car accident and said that, after the humiliation and beating he received, he wished he would live no more.
Later the ministry of interior said that the man was wanted on several charges and did not address the torture allegations.
In the first 11 months of 2021, Egypt's Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims documented around 93 incidents of torture in police detention, along with 54 deaths in police custody.
The issue of torture in Egypt has been under the international spotlight since an Italian parliamentary panel accused the Egyptian security apparatus of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016.
A post-mortem examination showed he had been tortured before his death.
Since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power in 2013, his government has been accused of overseeing the worst crackdown on human rights in the country's modern history.
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