Interior Ministry to send medical convoys to prisons, police stations

The Interior Ministry will send “medical convoys” to prisons and police stations to offer medical services to detainees, the ministry declared in an official statement Tuesday.

Two of these convoys will be sent to Tora Prison and to Ain Shams, Matareya and Marg police stations, the ministry said. From Monday to Thursday, the convoy heading to Tora Prison will include 13 doctors tasked with performing check ups and administering medication to detainees.

“This comes as part of the ministry’s strategy to uphold the principles of human rights and to implement new discourse in the understanding of punishment. This includes offering full medical services to prisoners,” the statement explained.

The move could be an attempt to fight back against mounting criticism of brutal police practices inside prisons and detention facilities. Families of prisoners have continued to complain of deteriorating conditions inside prisons, reporting that detainees are deprived of proper medical care, and do not have access to basic needs like food, medication, clean water and warm clothes. Families of detainees serving sentences in maximum security faccilities, such as Al-Aqrab Prison, have also claimed they have been unable to visit their relatives for months.

In commemoration of International Human Rights Day, a group of local rights organizations and advocacy groups have slammed the ministry’s human rights record. In specific, the organizations pointed to recent reports of torture and forced disappearances allegedly linked to the ministry.

The death of two citizens in Ismailia and Luxor governorates this month are the most recent examples of police brutality cited in the statement. Afify Hosny and Talaat Shabeeb were both reportedly tortured to death inside police stations, sparking a wave of anger and protests in the two cities. Nine police officers were referred to Criminal Court last week on charges of allegedly torturing Shabeeb to death.

A report issued by the Al-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture documented 49 cases of torture in detention facilities in November alone. In nine of these cases, the victims were tortured to death.

These reports suggest the Interior Ministry has been given the green light “to harass civilians through illegal practices including torture, forced disappearances and other repressive measures, and systematic violations against basic rights and freedoms of citizens,” the organizations’ statement asserted.