Badr, Egypt’s New Prison Complex Built by Sisi to Be a Cemetery for His Dissidents

Egyptian political detainees’ complaints about inhuman conditions in the new Badr prison complex revealed a different aspect of the abuses and pain they are subjected to under the rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime.

On January 20, 2023, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR), based in London, published a group of handwritten letters, which it said were leaked from detainees inside Badr prisons.

The detainees described the prison as “the toughest of all Egyptian prisons.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had estimated, in December 2022, the number of detainees in Egypt at about 55,000 prisoners.

However, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, estimated that there are approximately 65,000 political detainees in Egypt.

 

‘We Are Dying’

Badr 3 Prison officially opened on December 30, 2021, under the name of the New Central Prisons Complex.

The prison is located 70 kilometers to the northeast of Cairo, established on an area of 85 acres, and includes 3 reform and rehabilitation centers.

The regime’s main motive for building the new prison was to exploit the location of the Tora prisons area overlooking the Nile in Cairo for investment projects, so the political prisoners were transferred to the new complexes, including Badr.

This was after the announcement of the evacuation of a number of the main prisons, replacing them with the new Badr prison complex, with hopes for “better human conditions” for the detainees.

The opening of prisons came as part of the New Republic campaign that prisons will contain advanced care systems, especially in terms of food and health.

Even the Egyptian Ministry of Interior released a film entitled A New Beginning on the occasion of the opening of the prison to announce what it described as an integrated edifice in accordance with international standards.

However, the reality was contrary to the regime’s claims and its security services, as most of the Badr prisoners are among the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian opposition, including the elderly, and many of them were inmates of the al-Aqrab Prison (Scorpion Prison).

According to the Egyptian Network for Human Rights, these prisoners are “now presumed dead.”

Under the title of “We Are Dying,” the organization received written letters from inside Badr 3 Prison, confirming the continuation of the horrific human rights violations.

The shocking message sent on January 18, 2023, mentioned the extent of the deterioration of humanitarian conditions, ill-treatment, health care, and nutrition.

It pointed out that despite being very cold this winter, the prison authorities refused to bring winter clothes; chronic diseases spread among the detainees, some of whom had already died as a result of this inhuman condition.

It reported that one of the most prominent victims was the detainee Hassan Diab, who died due to medical negligence on November 26, 2022.

It alluded to the existence of disturbances and objections from the detainees against the violations of the National Security, the prison administration, and the Prisons Authority.

The detainees who objected to the violations were stripped of their clothes and blankets in the harsh cold. They were placed in disciplinary cells without food except for one loaf per day while preventing them from taking medicine.

 

Fatal Situation

The difficult conditions inside Badr 3 Prison include continuous psychological torture. On October 12, 2022, Ikram Youssef, the mother of the former parliamentarian and political activist Ziad el-Alimi, announced her son’s complaint about practices that did not exist in the old prisons, namely the presence of cameras inside the prison cells.

She stated that “detainees in Badr are exposed to strong lighting 24 hours a day, so they cannot sleep or rest, which often exposes them to bouts of nervous breakdowns.”

On November 13, 2022, Nadeem Center against Violence and Torture issued a report entitled Archive of Oppression, stating that two deaths were recorded inside Badr 3 Prison, in addition to 17 cases of deliberate medical negligence.

Sayed Abdul Hamid al-Saifi (61 years old), who suffered from stomach cancer, was prevented from treatment in Badr 3 Prison until he breathed his last after his health condition worsened, according to the report.

The report added: “The second death case was recorded in the same prison for Alaa al-Salami (47 years old) while he was on an open hunger strike, and he did not receive medical follow-up throughout the period of his strike by the prison administration, which ignored his deteriorating health.”

The report noted that since 2017, al-Salami’s family had not been able to visit him, as he was being held in al-Aqrab Prison before he was transferred to Badr to live in much worse conditions.

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the former candidate for the presidential elections and head of the Strong Egypt Party, described the conditions of his detention in Badr 3 Prison on October 10, 2022, saying: “The situation is fatal.”

Aboul Fotouh, 71, is deprived of health care during his detention, as he suffered several heart attacks and was near death, according to the testimony of his son Ahmed.

Historically, Egypt is known for its horrific prisons, especially during the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime (the fifties and sixties of the last century).

During this period, the notorious military prison was strongly featured.

Years later, the names changed, and torture schools continued to evolve, from the Military Prison to the al-Aqrab Prison. In the Sisi’s era, Badr Prison currently tops the list of notorious deadly cellars.

On November 5, 2022, the human rights organization WE RECORD announced that Badr prisoners had been subjected to a systematic campaign of psychological and physical torture after their demands for an increase in the amount of food and winter blankets.

Prison guards and officers used electric shocks with water, tear gas, and loud noises.

Even El Shehab for Human Rights stated in a report on December 2, 2022, that whoever survives Badr Prison needs special psychological and physical rehabilitation so that he can overcome his ordeal.

 

Systematic Strategy

Mahmoud Jaber, the Egyptian lawyer and director of Justice for Human Rights Organization (Adalah), confirmed that the new Badr Prison is very different from any other prison in Egypt in general, despite the major violations that exist in all prisons.

In his interview with Al-Estiklal, he said: “Badr Prison has a special, systematic policy and strategy. It is the security arm of the Egyptian government where the Ministry of Interior deals with prisoners, especially with politicians.”

He added: “There is an illegal reality in Egypt, where laws and regulations in the prison are not respected, and there is another reality, which is that detainees in prisons that include politicians and dissidents, such as Badr, are not fit for living and are inhumane.”

He explained: “This was revealed after Badr was set at the end of 202, as part of a group of new prisons, which came as an alternative to Tora prisons area, which has the most famous and worst prisons in Egypt, headed by al-Aqrab.”

Therefore, Badr is only a spatial alternative. The locations might have changed, but the policies did not; they rather increased repression. According to the prisoners and their families, Badr is worse than al-Aqrab Prison, affirms the Egyptian lawyer.

The Egyptian human rights activist stated that “inside Badr Prison, prisoners are being tortured and physically and mentally abused. There is no room for the minimum standards or the rules for the treatment of prisoners approved by the United Nations.”

The lowest and least rights—related to medical and health services, hygiene, food and drink, visitation, and other inherent rights of the prisoner—are completely absent. As a result, a number of prisoners were subjected to medical negligence, which resulted in the death of a large number of them.

According to Jaber, Adalah Foundation for Rights and Freedom has monitored that the medical services inside Badr Prison are very poor, and it is the regime’s tool to kill detainees slowly and abuse them.

He added: “Because of this policy, tuberculosis, diabetes, heart diseases, chest allergies, fever, rheumatism, skin diseases, and cancer are spreading inside these prisons.”

He continued: “The number of cancer patients imprisoned in Egypt in 2013 reached 790, several of whom moved to Badr. The necessary technical capabilities and equipment are not available in prison hospitals.”

He continued, “There is no appropriate treatment for pathological conditions, and most of the medicines given to them are useless painkillers.”

This led to many deaths among political detainees in Badr 3 Prison, which is deliberate killing.

He called for an official UN human rights visit under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council to find out about the conditions of prisoners in Egypt “in order to improve their conditions and protect them from the deliberate retaliation that the Egyptian government is working on, and exaggerating the mistreatment of prisoners, especially the prisoners of Badr 3 Prison.”