مركز ماعت للدراسات الحقوقية والدستورية

URGENT DECLARATION

MAAT SUES THE MINISTER OF INTERIOR AND INFORMS THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR GENERAL

60 FAMILIES OF THE DETAINEES' RELATIVES STAY OVER NIGHT IN THE OPEN AIR IN FRONT OF ' THE NEW VALLEY' JAIL

12/11/2006

Maat center has just received many calls from the families of about 60 political detainees who were lately forced out, by the Ministry of Interior, from Damanhour jail to El Wady El Gadeed ' The New Valley''s one under the pretext that they have refused to make ' revisions of thoughts', in spite of the fact that they do not belong to any 'Jihadi' trend or adopt any thought that supports armed violence, but the security bodies categorizes them as 'salafi' groups. These people are amongst those who have been detained after El Azhar and Abdul Monem Riad explosions in April 2005.

The families asserted that they lied down in ' El Wady El Gadeed' streets nearby the prison for about 48 hours as the prison's administration refused to allow them to visit or see their detained relatives. Most of these families are women and old people who cannot endure the difficulties of traveling to El Wady, as it takes them more than a whole day to go only. The families also affirmed that their relatives were expelled to El Wady jail as a punishment because they (the detainees' relatives) were courageous enough to disclose the Ministry of Interior's violation of the rights of the detainees, whose freedom is restrained, and their families due to a case whose security investigations ended at bringing 14 persons only to trial while the detainees due to which case are 2500 persons.

The detainees' women also asserted that their husbands and sons have been expelled as a punishment for their ( the women's) resort to Mass Media and the judicial centers and associations to raise the issue of their detainees , especially after ' The Egyptian Network To Defend The Detainees' and its coordinator, Maat Center, published a field statement about the Security's blackmailing and raping of the detainees' women and wives in Shubra El Kheema before and during the previous Holy Month of Ramadan, during which the streets and districts of Shubra were void of the women of the detainees after they had Security summons.

In addition, the ladies asserted that they have been attempting since yesterday afternoon to meet the Security men and the governor to allow them to visit their detained relatives but all in vain. Moreover, this is expected in each coming visit due to the unjustified negative resolution of the Ministry of Interior, whose outcome has to be endured by the detainees' families including women, children and old people. Furthermore, most of these families are needy and penniless families and therefore cannot afford to travel to the farthest Egyptian governorate.

The Center, while announcing his full solidarity with those people, declares that he is going today to present a notification to the Public Prosecutor General in which he calls upon him to put an end to this catastrophe that has been repeated with the innocent detainees' families and which violates the minimum detainees' rights which should be respected as it came in the international conventions which was signed by the Egyptian government and thus became part of its internal legislation.

Maat Center also he will finish during few hours with the procedures of suing against the Ministry of Interior, in which he calls upon it to end the cases of administrative detention that lasts for a long time for those who are not accused of any judicial resolutions and who are detained after El Azhar and Abdul Monem Riad explosions and those who obtained judicial resolutions of release but are not actually released , but they are still detained in the State Security quarters until new detention laws are issued. Such cases are frequently repeated along with the torture operations that they are exposed to frequently during the period of their detention. The Center also calls upon the Ministry of Interior to cancel the negative law of the Ministry and the jails authority to expel these detainees to jails far away from their families' residence.



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