Six political detainees die in Egyptian prisons in one week

The death of six detainees in Egyptian prisons in the space of one week has sparked concerns among rights groups, further highlighting terrible conditions in prisons across the country.

The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) reported that the six political prisoners died in a detention centre in the Sharqia governorate while tens of thousands of other detainees enter their 12th year behind bars.

One of the prisoners was identified as Mohamed Farouk Hussein, 49, who was reportedly suffering from health issues and was finally transferred to Zagazig Hospital where he died on Monday.

Hussein had suffered chest pains and shortness of breath for several weeks with his requests for treatment repeatedly refused by prison authorities, the ENHR said.

The rights group also warned that prison conditions had deteriorated across the country, with high temperatures and overcrowding common, with some detention centres three times over capacity.

Five other detainees died in the same prison within 48 hours, ENHR said, pinning the cause of their death to suffocation due to poor ventilation, dehydration, high temperatures, and overcrowding, while prison authorities only distribute water for two hours a day despite the suffocating heat.

Poor sanitary conditions within the prison had also caused the spread of diseases.

"These deaths are a microcosm of the serious violations that occur in police detention centres in Egypt, amid a complete lack of oversight and inspection by the responsible authorities," Ahmed El Attar, the executive director of ENHR said in a statement cited by various news publications.

Sexual harassment

ENHR recently reported several cases of sexual harassment and poor treatment of women detainees by senior police officers at the Zagazig detention centre.

In a testimony to the rights group, one female prisoner said women there are often touched inappropriately when male officers search them with no female staff working in the women's section of the detention centre.

ENHR said it "holds the ministry of interior responsible for the deaths of detainees", calling for immediate action and an investigation into the deaths.

It comes as Amnesty International warned that 119 people had been detained in a crackdown over calls for protests over rising energy prices and power cuts which never materialised.

Local and international human rights groups estimate that Egypt has detained as many as 60,000 people since current President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi overthrew Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, in a military coup in 2013.