Press Release
Egyptian Prisons Between Torture and Murder
When Dignity is Violated and Justice is Assassinated!
In a recurring scene of covered-up crimes, the young man Ayman Sabri died inside a police station in Dakahlia Governorate, as a result of brutal torture that left its effects clearly on his body. No sooner had 48 hours passed than another young man died inside the Al-Saf police station in Giza Governorate, amid identical accounts of deliberate negligence, ill-treatment, and lack of humanity, which turned the departments into places of slow death.
As usual, the Egyptian regime denied any connection to the matter, claiming that the two deaths were the result of "natural causes," despite the testimonies of witnesses, the leaked photos, and the condition of the bodies, which confirm that their owners were subjected to torture. So why are the perpetrators not held accountable? Why isn't a serious, transparent investigation opened? Why are cases always closed with "no grounds for prosecution"? Rather, why does the regime insist on protecting criminals and acquitting them, if it is not the mastermind and executor of these crimes?
The deaths in police stations and prisons are no longer an exception or individual errors, but have become a recurring pattern, under a security system that does not fear accountability and finds no one to deter it. In addition to enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and denial of a fair trial, detention centers have become stations for humiliation and liquidation.
According to reports from human rights organizations, Egyptian police stations are witnessing deplorable detention conditions, where dozens are crammed into narrow rooms unfit for animals, denied healthcare, and torture is practiced as a means of humiliating detainees or extracting confessions under duress.
This explicitly contradicts what Islam has stipulated of the state's duties towards its subjects. In Islam, the state is responsible for preserving blood, honor, and dignity. If the state turns into a tool of oppression and a sword held over the necks of the people, it has betrayed the trust, betrayed the covenant, and become an adversary to its subjects before God Almighty. As the Prophet ﷺ said, in explaining the danger of those who are given authority over people and make things difficult for them or wrong them: "O God, whoever is in charge of anything of the affairs of my nation and makes things difficult for them, make things difficult for him, and whoever is in charge of anything of the affairs of my nation and is kind to them, be kind to him." This is a supplication from the Messenger of God ﷺ against those who wrong and tyrannize the nation, so what about those who torture and kill them in prisons?! And what about those who turn police stations into places of revenge, not justice?!
One of the state's duties in Islam is:
- Preserving life and dignity, the Prophet ﷺ said: "Indeed, your blood, your property, are sacred to you like the sanctity of this day of yours, in this month of yours..." Agreed upon.
- Holding aggressors from the men of the state accountable before others. We may recall the saying of the Rightly Guided Caliph, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him: "When did you enslave people when their mothers gave birth to them free?"
- Establishing justice for all, without discrimination or immunity, for ruling according to what God has revealed does not exclude a tyrant with authority.
But the reality today proves that the Egyptian state protects the executioners, and honors them with promotions and rewards, while the sincere, the honorable, and the carriers of the call to implement Islam are suppressed, thrown into detention centers, fabricated cases are made against them, and unjust sentences are issued against them!
O Soldiers of Kinana: You are the aides and tools of this regime, and its partners in sin, whether you participated in the crimes or not, as long as you accept them or remain silent about them, for the Prophet ﷺ said: "Whoever helps a wrongdoer to invalidate a right with his falsehood, then he is free from the covenant of God and the covenant of His Messenger." So do not be a stick in the hands of the oppressors, but be as God wanted you to be, soldiers who protect the nation, not attack it, and defend its blood, not shed it, and work to establish His law, not to guard the tyrants.
Rise to your duty, fulfill the duty of support, and be supporters of the truth, restoring Islam to its position, the Caliphate to its reality, and justice to the land from which it has disappeared.
﴿Indeed, God orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded.﴾
The Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
In the Wilayah of Egypt