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The Giulio Regenis of Egypt since 2013: A report on deaths in custody in Egypt, January-October 2020 Committee for Justice Geneva 10 December 2020 List of contributors Data collection Asmaa Mohamed Laila Hossam Salma Mahmoud Sarah Helmy Doaa Farouk Donia Mahmoud Ahmed Amin Statistics preparation Asmaa Mohamed Donia Mahmoud Writing and Research Sanaa Ahmed Translation and editing Marwa Murad Review Ahmed Mefreh Design Karim el-Sayed 1 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Who are we? 7 First: Overall findings of deaths in detention facilities 2013-2020 9 Second: Detailed findings of deaths in detention facilities, January - October 2020 14 The political/legal framework for the incidents of deaths in detention facilities in 2020 14 Findings of monitoring and documenting deaths in detention facilities during (January- October 2020) 19 Significance of the numbers 27 Third: Victims at risk of death 33 Fourth: Documented narratives 42 Recommendations 51 2 Introduction Regeni is not the only victim of the repression and brutality of Egyptian authorities. On September 6, 2013, nearly two months after the overthrow of Egypt's first elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, police detained a French citizen named Eric Lange, 49 years old, who had been working as a teacher for twenty years in Cairo, from the downtown area, on the pretext that he did not carry his personal identification papers and that he had violated the curfew, and on another pretext later, which is "drunkenness". The following day, a release order for Lange was issued, but the Qasr al- Nil police station authorities did not implement it - as usual - but instead he was beaten to death in custody. The family's lawyer points out that the forensic report issued from the city of Nantes in western France proved that on September 13, 2013, Lange was beaten with an iron stick for six hours in a row, which led to his suffocation and death. Moreover, in a letter addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron on the eve of his official trip to Egypt in February 2019, the Lange family wrote that the wounds around his ankles, as evidenced by the report, indicated that Lange was hanged by his feet while receiving severe blows all over his body. While the account of Egyptian authorities clarifies that the death was due to the beating of Lange by his companions in custody, this report states that authorities at the Qasr al-Nil Police Headquarters bear the greatest part of the responsibility, as it is not imaginable that Lange would be hanged from his feet except by them. It is also unimaginable that his torture would continue for six continuous hours, without their direct order or instigation at least. The Committee for Justice (CFJ) team believes that this incident was a typical Tashrifa (Arabic for a humiliating reception for new detainees) for Lange, in which detention authorities inflict severe beatings and torture on the detainee upon his arrival at the detention facility. Detention authorities might have been afraid of doing so on the day of his detention - September 6 - anticipating pressure by the French government on the security agencies to release him. Since this did not happen, it is highly likely that they decided to torture him, taking advantage of the general climate of hostility towards foreigners at the time -many of them were considered "spies", and incited a number of criminal detainees held with him to beat him to death while holding them criminally responsible for his killing. It is customary for detention authorities in Egypt to place criminal detainees with political and civilian detainees in the same cells for purposes of surveillance and abuse. 3 Lange died soon after the incident. Of course, the detention authorities did not provide him with the necessary health care, but they merely transferred him to a nearby detention room, letting him die slowly. The recorded date of his death was September 13, 2013, after six days of arbitrary detention in violation of the release order. The Lange family submitted a request to the investigating judge at the Nantes Court to form an international investigation committee to effectively investigate the location of the incident, and investigate those responsible for Lange’s arrest as well as the authorities in charge of the detention facility. Also, the family submitted an official complaint to the Minister of Interior against two police officers over "kidnapping" and "failing to rescue” Lange. The complaint, however, did not lead to any results despite the intervention of then French President Francois Holland. In 2016, the Criminal Court issued a seven-year prison sentence against six defendants - Lange’s detention companions- on charges of "beating to death". But police officials who committed, ordered and incited this crime have yet to be held accountable. A month after the killing of Lange, on October 13, 2013, detention authorities in the First Ismailia Police Station announced the killing of 55-year-old American citizen James Henry Lawn, after his alleged suicide in the waiting room bathroom inside the building. The authorities had arrested James on August 29, 2013, after stopping him on the road between the cities of Al-Arish and Rafah, on the pretext of violating curfew. James was held in pretrial detention for six weeks, during which - on October 8 - he received a visit from US embassy officials in Cairo. He allegedly committed suicide on October 13, 2013, one day after he was informed of the decision to extend his pretrial detention for another thirty days. The case of the alleged suicide indicates the responsibility of the detention authorities in the First Ismailia Police Station for the death of the victim by neglecting to diagnose his psychological state, ignoring the presence of suicide tools - a leather belt and shoe tie - in his possession, and causing his deep frustration by informing him of the decision to extend his pretrial detention soon (two or three days) after the visit of US embassy officials to him, without preparing him psychologically to receive this decision. The negative impact of the incident of the killing of Lange in his prison due to torture and beatings cannot be neglected. James was hoping for his release quickly after the visit of the officials, then he was afraid of being killed by torture after he was informed of the extension of his pretrial detention, and the detention authorities did not notice this shift in his psychological conditions. 4 Thus, the criminal responsibility of the detention authorities for the death of James proves the following: First, the nature of the special relationship between the detainee and the detaining authorities: The tragedy of suicide is not merely about the detainee, but it also indicates the failure of the detention authorities - responsible for his legal, human, health and psychological conditions - to protect him from harming himself, thus obstructing the course of justice on the one hand, and violating the objectives of the system of correction and punishment on the other, especially since James was not proven guilty of any charges when he committed suicide. So he had lost hope in the justice system’s adherence to human rights, his country’s committment to release him, and the judicial authorities’ ability to protect him from torture and abuse. Second, in the case of James, the presence of the context and previous facts that represent a direct threat to his personal security: That could be exemplified in the precedence of the complicity of detention officials and detention companions - a month before James allegedly committed suicide - in killing Lange by beating and torture, and then their escape from accountability. This is not the first time when a foreign detainee/prisoner dies due to the detention authorities' negligence in carrying out their legally binding duties and roles - according to the Egyptian constitution and international treaties. Depriving detainees and prisoners of their human rights, and targeting them with violence based on discrimination - be it political, ideological, or ethnic - has led to the death of a Sudanese prisoner called Mansour in February 2018. According to the official version of his death, Mansour died of a circulatory collapse after his arrest in connection with a case of theft and confrontation of authorities in the Al-Basateen Police Station area. It is no secret that the general discrimination in Egypt against Sudanese individuals was the main reason for the death of Mansour, who did not receive health care of any kind, and the media did not shed enough light on his condition, perhaps for the same reasons. In January 2020, Mustafa Qasim Abdullah, a 53-year-old American-Egyptian citizen died in the hospital of Liman Torah (maximum security prison), where he spent a whole year suffering from gross medical negligence. Authorities had arrested Mustafa on August 14, 2013, during the dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in. They had not hesitated to abuse him for six consecutive years, despite his suffering from thyroid disorders and diabetes. The American embassy in Cairo 5 tried to intervene to release him to no avail. Mustafa had also attempted in vain to go on hunger strike to improve his miserable conditions of detention, including torture, overcrowding, ill- treatment and preventing the entry of medicine, food, clothes, blankets and water to him. This has all been compounded by the negligence of authorities to aid him when he fell into a diabetes coma until he fell unconscious for five consecutive months, after which he woke up in the intensive care room at the prison’s hospital, then lost his life on January 13, 2020. There is an obvious common thread between all of these cases, namely racial discrimination that the security and detention authorities pursue throughout the Arab Republic of Egypt and in the various detention facilities.

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