Rights groups decry treatment of doctor imprisoned for protesting

A group of 16 local rights organizations spoke out against the treatment of incarcerated doctor Ahmed Saeed in a joint statement released Thursday after he was reportedly sent to solitary confinement on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old surgeon is serving a two-year sentence in the notorious Aqrab Prison, the maximum security sector of Cairo’s Tora Prison complex. He and 13 others were arrested following a peaceful demonstration on November 19 commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud protests. Saeed and four of his co-defendants were convicted of protesting without a license, taking part in a demonstration of more than five people, blocking public traffic and possessing publications likely to disturb the public order.

His sister Lamia told Mada Masr that Saeed was not actually arrested during the protest, but apprehended by plainclothes policemen from a downtown Cairo coffeeshop about an hour after the protest had ended. She asserts he was not part of that day's demonstration, but was targeted for his participation in prior street actions. Saeed was involved in the January 25, 2011 protests, during which he worked in field hospitals to treat protesters injured by security forces, as well as anti-government protests in 2012 and 2013. He later moved to Germany, and was in Egypt for a brief visit when he was arrested.

After his arrest Saeed was taken to the Abdeen Police Station, where he was tortured with electric shocks and severely beaten, according to the rights groups. Saeed was initially transferred to a lower security prison, the statement said, but after being placed in solitary confinement on his first day he joined his fellow inmates in a hunger strike against prison conditions. His health deteriorated to the point that the Doctors Syndicate demanded the Prisons Authority transfer him to a hospital, but the rights groups allege officials sent him to the higher security Aqrab facility instead in retaliation against the hunger strike.

Since being transferred to Aqrab, Saeed has been denied visits to his family, medicine, blankets, winter clothes and pen or paper, the statement asserted, and as of February 17 he has been held in solitary confinement.

The rights groups said they were highlighting Saeed’s case because it is representative of the inhumane conditions that most prisoners face at Aqrab Prison, which is infamous for brutal living conditions. Hundreds of prisoners’ families have repeatedly complained that they are denied access to their loved ones. Those who manage to see their family members say they lack access to basic necessities, and reports of torture and abuse are rampant.

A Mada Masr investigation documented cases of families who were denied their legally guaranteed visitation rights. When families are permitted to enter, they say visits rarely last the mandated 10 minutes. Prison guards frequently prevent the families from bringing in food, clothing or needed medications, the Mada report showed, and many inmates wear their summer uniforms even in the winter cold. Families said conditions briefly improved when the state-affiliated National Council for Human Rights inspected the prison in December, but took a turn for the worse shortly thereafter.