NEW YORK
Scores of Egyptians have died in 2014 while in government custody, many of them packed into detention centers in life-threatening conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a damning report published Wednesday.
In addition to those who died after facing torture or physical abuse, many appear to have died because "they were held in severely overcrowded cells or did not receive adequate medical care for serious ailments," the report said.
The army-backed authorities in Egypt have launched a massive crackdown on dissent since the country's first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi's ouster in July 2013, launching a broad arrest campaign targeting tens of thousands of his supporters.
The influx of detainees has strained the prisons, leading authorities to place many of them in temporary detention sites.
"Egypt’s prisons and police stations are bursting at the seams with opposition supporters rounded up by the authorities," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East & North Africa director of the group. "People are being held in grossly overcrowded and inhumane conditions, and the mounting death toll is the wholly predictable consequence."
The report urged Egyptian authorities to abide by international law, which stipulates that detainees need to be provided with the same health care available to free citizens.
The report added that Egypt's prosecutors had filed only one case against police since mid-2013, despite the rising number of deaths and widespread reports of mistreatment.
"The authorities should investigate deaths in custody and prosecute police officers and other officials suspected of negligence or abuse," said the report.
Egypt slams new HRW report on detainee deaths
A senior Egyptian official has denied allegations in a recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that states that scores of detained political dissidents have died in Egyptian prisons over the past year and a half.
"The report is completely inaccurate," Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim, deputy interior minister for human rights, told the Anadolu Agency.
Abdel-Karim, for his part, dismissed the assertions, insisting that Egypt's prison facilities were torture-free.
"Prisons are run under full government oversight, ensuring that inmates' conditions are in line with international human rights standards," Abdel-Karim said.
The official did not give the number of detainees to have died in custody over the past year, but said any such cases were due to complications associated with pre-existing illnesses.
"Prosecutors and forensics officials always investigate the cause of death in such incidents," Abdel-Karim said.
"The timing of these [human rights] reports is always suspicious," Abdel-Karim said, in reference to the fact that the new HRW report was released only days before the fourth anniversary of a popular uprising that forced autocratic President Hosni Mubarak to resign in 2011.
"The timing of this report is as suspicious as that of another report issued just before the first anniversary of the dispersal of Rabaa Square," he said, referring to a major HRW report issued last August that accused Egyptian security forces of systemically killing 817 pro-Morsi demonstrators at a Cairo sit-in in August of 2013
The Egyptian government accuses HRW of bias – an allegation the rights group denies.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday also expressed concern over the Egyptian authorities' adherence to international human rights standards.
"The secretary-general has reaffirmed his previous appeals to Egyptian authorities to commit to international human rights standards," Ki-moon's deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, told The Anadolu Agency.
Abdel-Karim, for his part, declined to comment on Ki-moon's statement.
"We adhere to the minimum human rights standards in dealing with prisoners; we are aware that torture is a crime punishable by law," Abdel-Karim said.
Over the last year and a half, the Egyptian authorities have waged a relentless crackdown on dissent that has primarily targeted supporters of Morsi and his embattled Muslim Brotherhood group, which the government labeled a "terrorist organization" in December 2013.
Over the same period, hundreds of protesters have been killed or injured and tens of thousands have been thrown behind bars.
The government, for its part, denies the existence of "political" prisoners in Egypt, asserting that all those in custody face criminal charges.
