Egypt: « State of emergency » and human rights violations

« State of Emergency »: New report reveals violations in Egyptian detention centres in January-March 2021.

The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has launched the second version of its periodic reports under its Detention Watch project, with the aim of mobilising the efforts of human rights defenders, legislators and international stakeholders, as well as the Egyptian government, to address political situations outside prisons and detention centres in a way that increases the effectiveness of their actions to correct conditions inside these facilities.

The new report, entitled « The State of Emergency », monitors violations in prisons and detention centres in Egypt from January to March 2021.

Egypt appears to be drawing on Carl Schmidt’s concept of the « state of exception », which referred to the state’s use of its sovereign power to violate the law under the pretext of protecting or achieving the « public good ».

The CFJ report reviewed the violations that the organisation monitored from January to March 2021, which totalled 1962 violations, in 616 prisons and detention centres.

The largest number of violations monitored were:

Arbitrary deprivation of liberty - 59% (1166/1962)
Poor conditions of detention - about 17% (335/1962)
Enforced disappearance of 17% (336/1962)
Torture of about 5.5% (108/1962)
And death in detention (18/1962)