Starving in Silence: Inside el-Sisi’s Prisons Where Egypt’s Revolution Icons Are Slowly Dying

Inside the tightly sealed cells of Egypt’s notorious Badr 3 prison, silence reigns — the suffocating quiet of a slow, deliberate death. No visits. No medicine. No exercise. No human contact. Not even the mercy of darkness at night.

Once prominent figures in Egypt’s political arena — leaders of the January 25 Revolution and senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood — are now frail, hunger-striking bodies resisting the brutality of the regime. 

Their protest is a desperate attempt to shatter the wall of silence and state repression.

Since June 20, 2025, a group of Egypt’s most prominent political detainees have launched an open-ended hunger strike, protesting what they describe as a “slow-motion extermination” carried out by Badr 3 prison authorities under the watch of the National Security Agency.

But this is more than a humanitarian crisis — it is a blaring alarm about the complete collapse of human rights in Egypt. 

Justice is eroding, the state drifting further into a realm of punishment, torture, and enforced isolation — unchecked and unaccountable.

Scenes of Repression

Among those taking part in the hunger strike are high-profile figures who have spent nearly 12 years in solitary confinement — denied fair trials and stripped of even the most basic human rights.

They include senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders Mohamed el-Beltagy, Abdul Rahman al-Barr and Gehad el-Haddad, as well as Osama, the son of late President Mohamed Morsi, former minister Khaled el-Azhari, and several others.

Some of the hunger strikers are now in critical condition, suffering repeated fainting spells and diabetic comas — all while being completely denied visits, medical care, exercise, or any form of human contact.

Sanaa Abdel Gawad, wife of Mohamed el-Beltagy and mother of fellow detainee Anas, says she has received no news of her husband or son for months.

She only recently learned that el-Beltagy had joined the hunger strike, despite his already deteriorating health and multiple chronic illnesses — all left untreated in the medical vacuum that is Badr 3 prison.

“They are dying slowly… the cell doors have rusted from being shut for so long — what is left to close now? Why this added cruelty?” Sanaa Abdel Gawad posted on Facebook.

“Is it their resilience that enrages you? Does their defiance unsettle you, so you punish them with more abuse? Did they go on hunger strike because you silenced their voices and slammed shut every door to justice?”

“We know your hearts have turned to stone — or worse. But we believe that God is mightier than your cruelty, your vengeance, your oppression. He is greater than those who tyrannize and exalt themselves over His people,” Abdel-Gawad said.

A Moral Crisis

The unfolding tragedy found its way into the courtroom on 5 July 2025, during a hearing for Badr 3 detainees presided over by Judge Mohammed el-Saeed el-Sherbiny.

There, former minister Khaled el-Azhari stood to speak — not to plead a case, but simply to record a deep cut on his hand and request that his blood pressure and sugar levels be checked in the courtroom. His appeal was met with silence.

Former political prisoner and broadcaster Mossaad al-Barbary recounted the scene, describing the situation as “a full-fledged crime against prominent political figures being subjected to psychological and moral liquidation behind bars.”

Writing on Facebook, al-Barbary recounted how Dr Hassan al-Prince — a physician and university professor — spoke in court of 15 suicide attempts inside Badr prison, and of his own hunger strike, now in its sixteenth day. 

He asked for his medical condition to be officially recorded. The response: silence. 

Then, as if nothing had been said, the court ordered the renewal of detention for all.

“The detainees have vowed to continue their hunger strike. Some have even declared their intent to pursue suicide, seeing it as the only remaining form of protest after years of total isolation — denied visits, denied treatment, denied even the right to step outside,” al-Barbary added.

Al-Barbary noted that available information confirms at least 58 detainees in Badr 3 are enduring inhumane conditions — so dire that several have recently attempted to take their own lives, including three suicide attempts in a single day on July 4.

“This is not a case of individual misconduct — it is a systematic policy of vengeance against the symbols of the January 25 Revolution and senior figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, who have withstood repression since 2013 and refused to compromise their principles.”

“What is happening in Badr 3,” he wrote, “is not just a legal or human rights disgrace — it is a full-blown moral catastrophe. And we will not stay silent,” Al-Barbary concluded.

The case of Osama Morsi

Amid the continued deterioration of conditions for political prisoners in Egypt, the case of lawyer Osama Morsi — son of the late president — stands out as a stark example of what rights groups have come to call a policy of “open-ended punishment.”

On July 7, his family announced that he had entered a full hunger strike nearly two weeks earlier, in protest against his ongoing solitary confinement in Badr 3 prison, where he is denied visits, medical care, exercise, and even the most basic interaction with other inmates.

According to a statement issued by his family, Osama Morsi has endured harsh detention conditions since his arrest in December 2016 — with no regard for basic legal or humanitarian standards.

Despite official permits being granted for visits by his family and legal counsel, prison authorities have consistently refused to allow them, in open defiance of the law.

Although he was previously sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of “inciting violence” — a sentence due to end in 2026 — he was recently recycled into a new case, listed as No. 1096 of 2022 under the State Security Emergency Court, extending his detention indefinitely.

On this basis, he was retried in March 2025 alongside some 70 other defendants — including lawyers and activists — facing repeated charges such as “inciting violence,” “spreading false news,” and “joining a banned organization.”

In one of the most notable sessions of his previous trial, on August 12, 2017, Morsi revealed to the court that prison authorities had torn up his family’s visitation permits. 

He described enduring complete solitary confinement, deprived of exercise and medical treatment despite suffering from a stomach ulcer.

At the time, he told the judge, “I am forbidden from praying. I told them, if they didn’t know, that I am a Muslim and want to pray — but the prison administration even denies me that.”

Osama Morsi’s case, having known no life beyond the cell since his arrest, embodies the darkest face of Egypt’s political detention system: sentences never truly end, isolation persists without respite, charges are repeatedly renewed, and imprisonment is extended — trapping a person in a never-ending cycle of torment.

The Toughest Ever!

Amid these dire circumstances, the Badr prison complex — to which most political detainees were transferred following the evacuation of Tora and al-Aqrab prisons — has emerged as one of the harshest sites of abuse and violation against dissidents, particularly elderly prisoners and prominent political figures whose lives are now under direct threat.

Over the past years, handwritten letters smuggled out from inside Badr have revealed a brutal reality behind the walls, exposing a relentless regime of isolation, abuse, and starvation — a stark contrast to the glossy propaganda the government promotes under the guise of “rehabilitation and correction centers.”

In a report published on January 20, 2023, the London-based Egyptian Network for Human Rights revealed it had obtained several of these letters, in which detainees described Badr prison as “the harshest of all Egyptian prisons.”

The prison officially opened in December 2021 as part of a government campaign, claiming the move aimed to improve conditions for inmates.

Located on the edge of the Eastern Desert near the new administrative capital, the complex spans more than 85 acres and comprises three centers designated as “rehabilitation and correction” facilities.

Originally constructed alongside plans to evacuate Tora and al-Aqrab prisons — part of a project to convert their prime Nile-front sites into commercial developments, according to earlier reports — Badr has instead become a harsher extension of those very facilities.

The difference is chilling: isolation in Badr is silent and airtight. Cells are monitored by cameras around the clock, lit day and night, while systematic bans on conversation, exercise, and visits prevail, alongside near-total denial of medical and humanitarian care.

According to the human rights network, “the majority of Badr’s detainees are leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian opposition figures, many of whom were previously held in al-Aqrab prison — and today they are counted among the living dead.”

International rights organizations estimate Egypt’s political prison population to be between 60,000 and 65,000, although head of the regime Abdel Fattah el-Sisi put the figure closer to 55,000 in remarks made late in 2022.

‘Honey Bath’

In another shocking development, a report by the Egyptian Network for Human Rights exposed a new method of torture employed at New Valley prison, dubbed by detainees the “honey bath.”

Prisoners are stripped naked, smeared with black molasses, and left exposed under the scorching sun as temperatures soar above 45 degrees Celsius.

Rights groups describe this practice as “a fully constituted crime of torture carried out routinely,” amid official silence and complete disregard for calls to launch an investigation.

On July 8, the Jawar Foundation for Rights and Freedoms issued a statement describing New Valley prison, deep in Egypt’s western desert, as more than just a penal facility.

It has become a mass grave for human dignity, where harsh isolation and systematic torture are carried out with impunity — far from any judicial oversight or legal accountability.

The statement added that the prison, which holds over 1,500 detainees, operates under a heightened security status, effectively functioning as a closed trench controlled by the National Security sector.

The cells are unventilated, cramped, and stifling — conditions so severe they cause serious physical and psychological deterioration. The foundation described this as “systematic slow execution in the name of the state.”

The statement also highlighted that abuses extend beyond the detainees themselves, inflicting suffering on their families. 

Visits become an ordeal, with relatives enduring more than 12 hours of travel through harsh desert climates — either scorching heat or bitter cold — only to sometimes be denied entry or granted mere minutes with their loved ones.

Jawar affirmed that conditions inside New Valley prison reveal a shocking example of the collapse of Egypt’s penal system, which has been transformed into an instrument of repression and revenge. 

It warned that the ongoing abuses, in the absence of transparency and accountability, pose a direct threat to human dignity and the rule of law.

The foundation concluded its statement by declaring, “New Valley is no longer merely a prison — it has become an open grave for human rights in Egypt, a stain of shame on a justice system that remains silent in the face of these crimes.”