Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

The leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Dr. Essam El Erian, revealed that  dozens of political prisoners died during last month in Egyptian prisons, as a result of medical negligence, withholding treatment, and lack of medical care in general.

During his court session in the case known as “breaking the Rabaa sit-in” he stated he had been infected with hepatitis C in prison and that the prison administration refused to transfer him to the Liver Institute for treatment.

El Erian demanded previously in court to meet with international lawyers to file lawsuits before international courts to investigate human rights violations in Egyptian prisons.

In the same context, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report last September stating thar police officers in Egypt routinely torture political prisoners, adding that since the military coup of July 2013, Egyptian authorities had arrested or charged 60,000 individuals. Thousands were tried in military courts, hundreds were sentenced to death, and scores of activists were forcibly disappeared for months by security apparatus.

According to human rights reports issued in recent months, the most prominent complaint of political prisoner families is that Egyptian prisons keep "prohibiting medicines and food as well as family and lawyer visits, cancelling weekly and holiday visits, and shortening the visit duration."

Noteworthy, on August 14, 2013, the Egyptian army and security forces broke up two sit-ins for supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in the Rabaa and Nahda squares in Greater Cairo.

The two operations killed more than 632 people, including eight policemen, according to Egyptian government own statistics by the National Council for Human Rights (official Egyptian government entity), however, local and international rights groups say the death toll has exceeded a thousand.