Detainees of the Scorpion Prison continue to be subjected to one of the most brutal ways of slow death, where the prison authority deprives them of their basic rights and exposes them to torture and repression.
It starts with placing them in dirty, dark and non-ventilated cells, and denying them medical treatment. It also subjects them to starvation and deprives them of covers and clothing, leaving them to suffer the cold weather and hunger amid complete deprivation of visits or permissions to leave their cells.
Early this year, the journalist Mahmoud Abdel Majid Saleh (47 years), who was detained inside the Scorpion Prison died due to his deteriorating health condition as he was detained inside horrible conditions of detention. The prison authorities continued to ignore his seriously deteriorating condition and the calls of other prisoners for help. The Scorpion detainees, with no exception, could face the same fate.
Following the death of Mahmoud Saleh, about 300 detainees inside Scorpion Prison started a mass hunger strike, protesting their inhumane detention conditions.
One of the detainees’ main demands was opening a serious investigation into Mahmoud Saleh’s death.
The prison authorities completely ignored the hunger strike and were in denial. Officials spoke to the media denying that there was a hunger strike inside the prison, while the prison authorities exerted different means of pressure on the striking detainees to end their strike by punishing them with disciplinary measures and putting them in solitary confinement cells. This resulted in dozens of strikers fainting due to low levels of sugar and blood pressure amid total disregard by the prison administration.
“Close Egypt’s Scorpion” campaign calls on the civil society, activists, human rights organizations, the media, and all humans to take all necessary means and form public opinions in order to impose pressure on the Egyptian regime to stop its repressive practices against the detainees inside the Scorpion Prison and to put an end to their inhumane conditions of detention. Time is running out and the lives of hundreds The detainees are at risk.
