Search results
Tora Prison (Egyptian Arabic: سجن طره Segn Tora; Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [seɡn tˤurˤɑ]) is an Egyptian prison complex for criminal and political detainees, located in Tora, Egypt. The complex is situated in front of the Tora El Balad metro station.
- Summary
- Recommendations
- Methodology
- I. Background: Scorpion Prison
- II. Abuses in Scorpion Prison
- III. Lack of Oversight and Independent Monitoring
- V. Acknowledgments
Since July 2013, when Egypt’s military, led by Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Mohamed Morsy, the country’s first freely elected leader and a high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood member, the Egyptian authorities have engaged in a widespread campaign of arrests targeting a broad spectrum of political opponents. Between Morsy’s overthrow ...
To Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
1. Provide unrestricted access to Scorpion Prison to a recognized international monitor of detention conditions. 2. Prepare a plan, in collaboration with a recognized international monitor, to improve conditions in the prison. 3. Propose a law establishing a national mechanism to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in prisons – such as an independent committee of medical doctors, human rights lawyers, members of independent human rights organizations, law professo...
To the Egyptian Interior Ministry
Take the following immediate steps at Scorpion Prison, in accordance with Egyptian law: 1. Cease the use of arbitrary visit bans and allow families to conduct 60 minute visits once every week with detainees held in pretrial detention and once every 15 days with convicted inmates. 2. Allow inmates to write four letters a month and have phone conversations of up to three minutes twice a month. 3. Ensure that a prison doctor visits sick inmates and inmates held in isolation once a day and transf...
To the Egyptian Public Prosecution
1. Investigate and if appropriate charge those with command responsibility for Scorpion Prison in connection with possible acts of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment committed by guards and officials. 2. Exercise the oversight power provided by law by inspecting Scorpion Prison regularly to ensure that the Interior Ministry is complying with the law. 3. Visit inmates during these inspections and investigate their complaints. 4. Prosecute Interior Ministry officers who have committed seri...
This report is based on personal interviews conducted in February and April 2016 by a Human Rights Watch researcher with eight relatives of Scorpion inmates and remote interviews conducted between May and August 2016 by a researcher and an assistant researcher with 12 family members and two lawyers. It also includes information from an interview co...
The Tora prison complex occupies 1.3 square kilometers (332 acres) in southern Cairo and houses at least six detention facilities administered by the Interior Ministry. These facilities include: Tora Liman, Tora Farm, Tora Reception, Tora Annex, Tora Maximum Security Prison 2, and Tora Maximum Security Prison, also known as the Scorpion. The Tora s...
Based on interviews with 20 relatives of inmates, two lawyers, and one former prisoner, Human Rights Watch found that Interior Ministry authorities at Scorpion Prison have, in order to intimidate and humiliate and in some cases as retribution for hunger strikes, subjected inmates to physical abuse and prolonged confinement in cramped and airless “d...
By law, Scorpion Prison, like all prisons in Egypt, falls under the control of the Interior Ministry’s Prisons Authority Sector (Qata` Musalaha al-Sigoun). In practice, however, the ministry’s National Security Agency – known as State Security Investigations until it was renamed after the 2011 uprising – maintains almost total control over decision...
A researcher from the Middle East and North Africa Division (MENA) of Human Rights Watch wrote this report and conducted and planned the research jointly with a MENA assistant researcher who conducted interviews and background research and assisted with translation. Neither can be named to protect their safety. Nadim Houry, deputy director in the M...
Apr 18, 2011 · Tora prison has gone through several stages in the last eight decades. It has close connections with the opposition and with key events in Egyptian history. Mostafa al-Nahhas Pasha, who served in government during the second quarter of the twentieth century, ordered its establishment to reduce overcrowding at Abu Zabal prison.
Jan 28, 2014 · After Dr Loubani helped victims and the filmmaker Greyson recorded the carnage, they were detained by Egyptian police and sent to the infamous Tora Prison on the capital’s outskirts, where the...
- 6 min
Today, Egypt’s Tora prison is infamous for its human rights violations [6, 7], and as where many political prisoners, protesters, and journalists are sent, forced to endure filthy, dangerous, and often violent circumstances [6].
Dec 17, 2020 · (Beirut) – Egyptian security agencies in mid-November 2020 introduced changes in Cairo’s Maximum Security Prison 992, known as Scorpion Prison, that almost completely deprive inmates of...
Jul 16, 2022 · Egypt holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, according to rights groups and researchers, their ranks swelled by Mr. el-Sisi’s crushing campaign against dissent. Mr. el-Sisi’s predecessors...
