Abdel-Razek said during the interrogation he received inhumane and degrading treatment in his cell that puts his health and safety in danger. He further elaborated that he was never allowed out of the cell, had only a metal bed to sleep on with neither mattress nor covers, save for a light blanket, was deprived of all his possessions and money, was given only two light pieces of summer garments, and was denied the right to use his own money to purchase food and essentials from the prison’s cantine. His head was shaved completely.
Programs: Criminal Justice
South Cairo Criminal court issued yesterday its decision on Patrick’s hearing session, renewing his remand detention for an additional 45 day pending the investigation in the case 7245/2019. The hearing was held yesterday in Patrick’s presence and the presence of his lawyers from EIPR. Patrick has already spent more than 9 months in remand detention.
Solidarity action with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) We urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mohammed Basheer, Karim Ennarah and Gasser Abdel-Razek and the dismissal of the case against them.
The recent developments also come as a direct response to our activities in the field of international advocacy, and in particular our meetings with a number of diplomatic missions, the most recent of which was a meeting held at EIPR’s headquarters on November 3rd with 13 ambassadors and accredited diplomats, who discussed ways to improve human rights conditions in Egypt.
In an unprecedented escalation for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a security force arrested Mohamed Bashseer, the Administrative Manager at EIPR from his home after midnight on Sunday the 15th and detained him for more than 12 hours
By the end of October 2020, the justice system in Egypt had carried out the largest number of executions (in different cases of a varying nature) since it began its expansion of the application of death penalty in the last five years. A total of 53 people were executed during the course of October, the last of these executions took place on October 28 when four convicts were executed in a judgement related to the killing of 17 people in a nightclub fire in Agouza.
10 Oct 2020
EIPR engages with the topic through highlighting specific difficulties that have impeded the fulfillment of the right to counsel in a number of cases seen before Egyptian courts, where death sentences have been issued. The case files and investigation papers of these cases were collected and documented by the team between 2017 and 2019.
EIPR had previously and repeatedly warned that the precedent of accusations being brought against a victim and survivor of rape and kidnapping sends a clear message to women and girls that reporting sexual assaults they are subjected to, may end up in them being charged as accused and lead them to prison, hindering any community efforts seeking to support women and girls in their quest to recover from the aftermath of sexual violence crimes that they may be exposed to.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the verdict passed in absentia by the Fifth Circuit of the Criminal Court (terrorism felonies) with 15 years’ imprisonment for Bahey El Din Hassan, founder of Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), and one of the pioneers of Egyptian human rights work throughout its history.
Once again the prison administration failed to transfer Patrick Zaki citing a force majeure event. Patrick was scheduled for a detention renewal session on Sunday June 28 that was meant to take place for the first time before a Criminal Court panel from a counter-terrorism circuit, which sits at the Tora Subofficers Training Institute. But once again we saw a repeat of what has become the norm over the last three months, following the April 28 decision by the head of the Cairo Appellate Court to resume detention renewal sessions without the presence of defendants in criminal cases
