14 Jan 2019; MEMO: A detainee inside Egypt’s notorious Scorpion prison has attempted suicide due to the severe torture he endured and the harsh detention conditions, a leaked letter from inside the prison revealed.
Al Jazeera news channel reported the letter as saying that detainee, Ahmad Abdullah Dabaan, was taken to hospital for treatment before being returned to prison despite his critical condition, because the prison administration was afraid that the suicide attempt would be made public.
According to the news channel, detained hunger strikers inside the prison have protested against the prison administration’s treatment of their colleagues, however the prison administration threatened to arrest their relatives if they did not end their strike.
The Scorpion prison administration “isolated the hunger strikers after they refused to respond to the prison’s threats”, it added.
The letter included an appeal to the media and human rights organisations to pressure the Egyptian government to provide prisoners with humane detention conditions that take into account their most basic humanitarian needs.
Egyptian human rights sources said that more than 300 detainees in Scorpion wing of the Tora prison have been on a hunger strike for the ninth consecutive day, in protest against the prison administration’s practices against them, which led to the death of journalist Mahmoud Saleh due to medical neglect.
Families and friends of detainees inside Scorpion prison have recently launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of the dire conditions inside Egypt’s prisons.
