“Add bars to your picture to express solidarity; solitary confinement is a prison within a prison.” With this slogan, a blogger campaign has been launched to demand a halt to solitary confinement for an increasing number of detainees held in Egyptian prisons.
Solitary confinement is regulated under Egyptian law and defined as “a punishment for particular misbehaviour, affected only after investigation and a witness hearing. It shall not exceed 30 days, and imprisonment will be inside a solitary cell for 22 hours a day, with two exercise times with other inmates.”
“Add bars to your picture to express solidarity; solitary confinement is a prison within a prison.” With this slogan, a blogger campaign has been launched to demand a halt to solitary confinement for an increasing number of detainees held in Egyptian prisons.
Solitary confinement is regulated under Egyptian law and defined as “a punishment for particular misbehaviour, affected only after investigation and a witness hearing. It shall not exceed 30 days, and imprisonment will be inside a solitary cell for 22 hours a day, with two exercise times with other inmates.”
Mukhtar Muneer, a human rights activist at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, says that in reality, things are different. Most prisoners spend their sentences in solitary confinement without investigation or charges, disregarding the law requirements. Inmates in solitary confinement exercise alone, away from other inmates, which is a flagrant violation of the law.
Prisoner of all eras
Political activist Ahmad Douma, 27, spent three years in solitary confinement at Tora Prison. Based on the Repression Counter webpage launched by the Stop-Solitary Confinement campaign, Douma has spent 941 days, 11 hours and 74 minutes in solitary confinement until 4:30 pm on Friday, 1 July, 2016. The counter is still on.
It was not Douma’s first solitary confinement, but it was the longest, according to his wife, journalist Nourhan Hifzi. “I don’t know when this nightmare will end,” she says.
Douma was known as the prisoner of all eras. He was imprisoned under all Egyptian regimes: Mubarak; the military council which took power following the 25 January revolution; Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013); Adly Mansour (2013-2014); and the current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The prison sentences issued against him have totaled 31 years and 30 days, for charges of incitement of violence, demonstration, resistance of authorities, and contempt of court, on four different counts, three of which are still awaiting the court of appeal judgment. He was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for the fourth count.
Violation of laws
Douma’s wife, Nourhan spoke about her husband’s distress during her last visit to him. “He has contemplated going on a hunger strike due to the impossibility of living under these conditions,” she said. “I have managed to persuade him to postpone this decision, as he has stomach problems.”
Douma spends 22 hours alone in a cell, with only two hours of exercise. “Sometimes, when he was bored, he used to request an increase in the exercise time, as stipulated in the law. The answer was ‘okay, we will consider your request’,” says Nourhan.
Mukhtar Muneer calls solitary confinement an additional punishment to imprisonment, and that Article 44 of Prisons Authority Law provides for this meaning. It entitles the prison warden to inflict solitary confinement and three other punishments. Although the law contains specific solitary confinement rules and controls, the executive authorities are turning a deaf ear. They continue torturing targeted prisoners like Douma or human rights activist Malik Adly, who is held in precautionary detention on charges linked to Egypt’s surrender of the two islands of Tiran and Sanafir.
“Ahmad is still in solitary confinement and prevented from receiving visitors apart from first degree relatives,” says Nourhan. “His physical and psychological states are deteriorating.”
Ahmad Douma’s wife said she had already submitted a complaint to the prisons authority objecting to her husband’s solitary confinement for over 30 days, and for banning him to pray in the mosque, lest he should speak to his prison mates. The complaint was rejected.
“He is also not allowed to exercise with other people, meet visitors, or read foreign newspapers. In other words, he is not allowed to have any communication with the outside world. Even books have been banned, because they contain political content.”
Defective law
Human rights activist Mohammed Zare’a, chairman of the Arab Organization for Criminal Reform believes that Article 44 is defective, because it turns the prison authority chief into a judge authorized to punish prisoners without trial. This is illegal because the Constitution states that detainees should be treated with dignity and must not be harmed physically or morally, which is not the case with prisoners in solitary confinement.
Zare’a added that preventive detention violates the Egyptian law. Solitary confinement conditions are likely to cause depression and psychological and physical problems, because detainees are denied natural light and communication with other people.
Nourhan describes her pursuit of her husband’s case, saying: “I have taken further action through another complaint to the prisons authority, but have not so far received any reply. The prison authority sources, meanwhile, have said that an official order is awaited regarding this issue.” Nourhan has also submitted a complaint to the National Council for Human Rights and Human Rights Committee at the Parliament, and is still awaiting a response.
Psychological violence
Saly Touma, a psychologist specialized in rape and torture cases, says detainees in solitary confinement may be denied all forms of human interaction and cannot alleviate loneliness and reduce the impact of psychological suffering.
“In the past, solitary confinement used to last several days or maximum of a few weeks and was used only as punishment against some violent prisoners in protection of other prisoners,” explained Touma.
“At present in Egypt, a detainee may spend years in isolated cells, in stark violation of human rights and international concepts of criminal justice.”
She indicated that the majority of former detainees who took part in solitary confiement-related research spoke about the suffering from tension and anxiety disorders reaching critical levels sometimes. Most of them underwent insomnia and in most cases, they turned into aberrations like ‘paranoia’. Their behavior was marred by violence and vindictiveness as well as depression, she explained.
In SC cases where prisoners are subjected to torture, they most likely experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and are haunted by the past experience.
Mona Hamed, psychiatric consultant at El-Nadeem Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, highlights the impact of solitary confinement on individuals. She says that prolonged deprivation of audio and visual communications can affect mental power and weaken the ability to concentrate and feel the impact of time and place. It can also cause hallucination from the lack of communication with human beings and loss of physical touch.
Hamed further explained that the new solitary practices including narrow space, lack of hygienic conditions, and banning prisoners to use the common washrooms are likely to lead to oxygen shortages and the spread of bacteria and contagious diseases.
Psychologically, solitary confinement is one of the most severe forms of torture. The impact of symptoms differs from one person to another. In the wake of a person’s release from solitary imprisonment, he is likely to show signs of defective memory, concentration and mode of thinking, over and above other mental disorders like reduced consciousness, that precedes a lapse into a state of loss of consciousness.
