Originally posted to the Middle East Monitor, 10 February 2021.
Violations are continuing against women in Al-Qanater prison, reports rights organisation We Record, since Amr Hisham took charge as chief of investigations at the prison on 4 February.
Earlier this month Hisham forcibly moved detainees Maha, Aya, Riman, Dawlat, and Lua’ya by force from the wing housing political prisoners to the one where criminal convicts are detained.
This brings the total number of women forcibly moved inside the prison by Hisham to 11, all of whom are political detainees.
The news comes shortly after journalist Solafa Magdy described being repeatedly sexually assaulted in Al-Qanater Prison.
Solafa was hit until she suffered heavy vaginal bleeding and stripped of all her clothes and dragged along the floor.
Solafa and her husband were arrested in November 2019 as part of a far-reaching crackdown to curb the September protests called for by whistleblower Mohammed Ali.
In November last year, We Record documented several unprecedented violations inside Al-Qanater women’s prison, including the chief inspector beating and assaulting the detainees.
At this time five other detainees were also transferred to the criminal ward and their clothes, medication, food, and drinks confiscated.
The prison administration has imposed visitor restrictions on them.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that the prison does not abide by “minimum standards of human life” or “meet the minimum conditions for the treatment of prisoners.”
In January it was reported that political prisoner Abeer Najad’s health was deteriorating from suspected coronavirus, the first case recorded in Al-Qanater women’s prison.
It was Chief of Investigations Amr Hisham who transferred her to the wing holding people pending drug trafficking cases and her clothes were taken away from her.
Abeer’s family said that when they visited her, her face was swollen, she was short of breath, had lost her sense of taste and smell, and was feeling lethargic.
She was not offered a coronavirus test.
Link to original post: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210210-further-violations-against-women-in-egypts-al-qanater-prison/
