|
|
|
Third Chapter
The Aftermath of the Deprivation of Freedom
"Prisoners without Rights"
The international accords concerned with human rights state explicitly and specifically, the rights that should be fulfilled for prisoners and detainees. These rights are sacred, because they can not be refuted or overlooked under any circumstances. In spite of that- through observation- the violations as a result of arbitrary detention is not only limited to deprivation of freedom, but inside prisons prisoners live another deprivation of their rights. This chapter reviews the stereotypes of violations, which confirms that arbitrary detention is an illegal act which opens the door for a series of other violations.
Inadequate Health Care:
Act number (16) from law number 396 for the year 1956 about the organizing of prisons, states that the temporary detained or arrested should have the right to food and medicine from outside the prison.
The decision of the Minister of Interior Affairs number 9 for the year 1961 states that prisoners should get health care.
He also limited the long procedures.
But contrary to that EOHR observed that detainees do not get the enough health care, which does not comply with what came in the Minister of foreign Affairs' decision.
Or what came in The Emergency law and the criminal procedures law, which states that the detainee should be treated like the temporary detainee.
It is not even compiling with the agreement of prisoner's treatment.
The EOHR observed that living conditions inside prisons are inhumane, because it can cause diseases.
Inside the prisons there are no windows for air conditioning.
Inadequate health care was and is still a violation of a lot of basic rights and freedoms.
That is why a lot of international agreements for human rights and national legislation's acts insist on providing a minimal of good living conditions for prisoners and other detainees, and to be as good as health care outside prisons.
Although the national legislation acts contain a lot of the standards that provide basic living conditions for prisoners and detainees, like: adequate habitat, adequate health care and playing sports…etc. And in spite of the responsible person's in the prison statements of the building of modern hospitals according to health care's latest developments inside prisons.
EOHR confirms from its side of point of view, that inadequate health care was and is still a violation for a lot of basic rights and freedoms of the detainees.
This is In addition to the complications that prisoners face to get medications from outside prisons, because of the prison head's inflexibility.
This draws a lot of questions on the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is building new prisons, while old prisons suffer from the lack of health care and the deterioration of living conditions.
A part of these expenses should have been used to renovate the old prisons and to lift the level of health care and living conditions.
Deprivation of the right to education:
Deprivation of education is one of the serious violations that a moderate number of prisoners and detainees are subject to inside Egyptian prisons.
This is an explicit violation of acts number 42, 38 from act number 18 in the prison's list that was issued on 29/12/1949, also standard number 77 from the standards of the right to the minimal standards of prisoner's treatment which provides the prisoners with the right to education.
In spite of that a person who is studying in a practical college is deprived of the right to go for the practical exam, which causes his failure because he does not fulfill the attendance minimal hours.
EOHR received a lot of complaints from individuals saying that the prison's administration refuses the sending of curriculum books to prisons and does not permit the detainee to leave the prison to suspend his exam, unless he gets permission from the Administrative Judiciary court which causes more financial burden on the detainee's family.
In the past few years, although the detainee has a legal right to leave the prison to have his exam in college, the prison's department did not permit him to go to his exam.
In that respect the Administrative Judiciary court confirmed in the appeal number 6203/48 filed by the detainee Ayman Mohamad AbdelMaguid Omar against the Minister of Interior Affairs and the head of Helwan University.
The Detainee asks in his appeal to stop the applying and abolish the decision to deprive him from doing having his exam of his fourth year in Science College and the two subjects that he still as to pass from the third year, which are solid physics and electronics.
Although the later got the legal permission to have his exam but the prison's headquarters refused him that right.
Deprivation of the Right to a Prison-Visit:
In the middle of the year 2001, after the Islamist group performed what is known as the initiative to stop violence, a gradual improvement of the visiting system has occurred concerning the detainees who are affiliated to the Islamist group.
They are allowed a visiting system known as (AlBataniya), where the detainee sits with his visitors on a blanket for a certain time that might extend to an hour.
But for the groups known as ALJihad, AlTakfeer, and AlHijra their visiting system is still that the detainees have to be behind the wires and between each detainee is a meter's length. Because the number of visitors is large, noise is created and sometimes it is hard to hear each other.
By the date 26/10/2002 the headquarters of prisons issued an administrative decision number 907 for the year 2002 to prohibit visiting for 3 months in the reception prisons in Tora, high security Tora prison, high security AbuZabal prison, and the third department of Leman AbuZabal.
This is a violation of act number 38 of the law of prisons' discipline number 396 for the year 1956 which gives the defendant and the temporary detainee the right to messaging and visiting.
Act number 60 of the interior list for prisons states that:" the person who is charged with a short time of detention or a temporary detainee has the right to messaging at any time and their relations can visit them once a week".
Also the prohibition of the visiting of detainees comes as a violation of acts number 141 of the criminal procedures code and number 53 of the lawyer's code which gives the lawyer who is certified by the DA the right to visit one of the detainees in the public prisons, and the right to be a private visit, in a proper place inside the prison.
It is also a violation of acts number 37 and 93 from the ideal standards of the minimal human treatment for prisoners, which provide the same right for detainees and other prisoners.
The Consequences of Recurrent Detention on Detainee's Families:
The most serious effects of recurrent detention are apparent in the social and economical devastating damages on the side of the detainees' families, especially that there are thousands of political detainees.
This means that thousands of families are subject to this social and political dilemma.
Most of the complaints that EOHR received are from impoverished families, who due to the confinement of its caretaker, who is usually the only source of source of income for the family, the whole family becomes extremely poor.
In addition to that the detainee turns from a source of income to a burden on the poor family (usually the wife and mother).
They have to provide from their limited income the expenses of visiting the place of detention and may be providing medicine and food for the detainee. It becomes worse if there is more than one detainee in a single family and in prisons distant from each other.
A lot of families who have more than one detainee filed complaints for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting that their sons be put in one prison.
This will help them reduce the expenses that they pay to visit their sons.
The detainee could be the only caretaker of the family and the family might not have a permanent income which makes them unable to make this visit, then they are left wit selling the house's furniture, because they know how much the detainee needs the visit.
One of the detainee's parents/or both of them could be an elder person and does not have any other children, which redeems him/her unable to earn his/her living and in desperate need of a caretaker.
The wife whose husband has been detained and does not have any other source of income is obliged to work in the informal working market, so that she is able to make a living.
In spite of that, the work market does not easily accept the wives of political detainees, because they fear the surveillance of the security.
On the other hand, due to these deteriorating living conditions, a lot of detainees' children can not continue their education because their families can not pay for their education, and the need for a source of income. So the children work in the informal work market to help in living expenses.
EOHR observed that a great percentage of detainee's children divert to learn manual jobs so that they can face the demands of life.
Another reason of dropping out of school of the detainees' children is the psychological pressure that they are under from their colleagues because of their fathers' detention.
|
|
Copyright © 2002 EOHR. All rights reserved. 