Beyond the walls where prisoners rot inside and families wait impatiently outside, there is a hidden world full of trade and bribery, the cost of which is paid by prisoners and their families.
“I was detained and interrogated at the Marg Police Station (MPS) for 45 days,” says Nagwa Ez, a member of April 6 Youth Movement, who a year ago was sentenced to three years in prison by the Court of First Instance. “In jail, even your breaths are worth money. If you do not have money, you face trouble until you die, especially if you are a political prisoner.”
Beyond the walls where prisoners rot inside and families wait impatiently outside, there is a hidden world full of trade and bribery, the cost of which is paid by prisoners and their families.
“I was detained and interrogated at the Marg Police Station (MPS) for 45 days,” says Nagwa Ez, a member of April 6 Youth Movement, who a year ago was sentenced to three years in prison by the Court of First Instance. “In jail, even your breaths are worth money. If you do not have money, you face trouble until you die, especially if you are a political prisoner.”
Ez recalls how a female guard tried to assault her during her detention at MPS. “A few hours later, I was offered to pay all the money I had with me to secure my personal safety, in addition to other amounts to hire a space of no more than half a square meter to sleep at night in the cell; otherwise, I would have had to remain standing throughout the night,” she says.
“At first, I thought that this was just my guard’s individual behavior, but when I complained to other officers they literally said about their colleague: ‘Satisfy her.’ A few days later, I found that she shared the money she got from me and my family with police officers and high ranking officers. Everything is permissible in prison, starting with mobile phones and ending with food and drinks which an officer buys then sells to prisoners at prices several times higher than their original prices.”
Ez maintains that her family used to pay L.E. 1,500-2000 (about US $ 200) per month to officers and the guards.
***
Nema, the wife of Ahamd Salem who is detained in the Toukh Police Station (TPS) in Qalyubia Governorate pending further investigations in the Shubra Al Khaimah case, against the backdrop of protests against Egypt’s waiver to Saudi Arabia of the two islands of Tiran and Sanafir, says in addition to the detention of her husband for over three months, which has deprived her family of any income, she also handles all the details of his life while in custody.
“Police officers only accept the entry of medicine and clothing bought from stores near the TPS, at prices up to three or four times higher, where officers get their share from these shops,” says Nema. “We are also forced to pay money to guards to provide services for our prisoners, which cost us more than L.E. 500 ($ 50 approximately) per visit.”
A few days ago, Nema’s husband had a severe flu. She brought him drugs from a pharmacy and gave them formally to the prison’s administration. During the next visit, however, Nema learned that her husband received no medicine. “The warden said to me: ‘This is the punishment for those who violate our rules,’” she says. “I had to pay for other medicines bought from the pharmacy they determined at the prices they fixed.”
***
The wife of a detainee in the Wadi El Natrun Prison (around 100 kilometers northwest of Cairo), who spoke under conditions of anonymity, says that prison is more like a shopping mall for those who can pay and a cemetery for those who cannot. She underlines that the mobile phone business in prison is one of the most profitable, where jailers sell prisoners old and obsolete phones worth no more than L.E. 100-150 (US $11) at ten times their prices. “My husband had to buy a mobile phone against L.E. 1,250 (nearly $ 125) to communicate with us because the prison’s administration prevented us from visiting him for over three months under false pretenses,” she says. “We also send charging cards to police officers and the guard every week to allow our prisoners to have one phone call with us for no more than one minute and in their presence.”
She also argues that the prison’s canteen forces prisoners to buy from it at exorbitant prices. “Police officers search the food we bring and consider them unsuitable for use, which forces us to pay money to the canteen to enable our prisoners to have edible food, rather than the prison’s food which causes them illness,” she says.
***
“Eighty packets of cigarettes a month; otherwise, torture and solitary confinement,” says Amani Ali, the daughter of a detainee of Muslim Brotherhood in Tora Prison where all families are forced to provide packets of cigarettes to police officers to provide their prisoners with drinkable water instead of the prison’s non-potable water. If a family cannot afford it, the prisoner is forced to clean the prison, and should he object, he is likely to face solitary confinement and torture without taking into account his health status, age or ability to perform such acts.
Amani says her father is over 65 and is suffering from several diseases. “He is unable to clean the prison as ordered once a week,” she says. “So we are forced to give packets of cigarettes to officers and some inmates to do the job for him.”
***
“Having a canteen inside prisons is provided for in the Prison Act,” says Mukhtar Munir, a human rights lawyer at the Freedom of Thought and Expression Center. “The problem however is not in the law, as usual, but in the forcing of the families of prisoners to purchase food from the canteen and the preventing of foods, vegetables, medicines and cigarettes on the pretext that they are available in the canteen. All the prison’s personnel start with the frisking guard and ending with the warden get their share from the canteen’s profits.”
Munir argues that the introduction or purchase of a mobile phone from a security staff member is illegal. However, the Prison Act allows prisoners to have one phone call with their family once a month using the prison’s telephone, especially if the family is prevented from visiting the prisoner. Another alternative is that a prisoner is taken to the Public Prosecution Office to see his family there. But rarely are any of these rules are enforced.
