Egyptian activists campaign against solitary confinement

CAIRO – Egyptian rights activists are posting photos on social media showing themselves behind symbolic bars to demand an end to what they say is the expanding and illegal use of solitary confinement for political detainees.

The photos are part of a monthlong campaign launched on June 12, calling on relatives of detainees subjected to solitary confinement to file complaints to parliament and the chief prosecutor against the Prisons Authority.

Egyptian prison regulations stipulate that solitary confinement should only be used as a disciplinary measure and not exceed 30 days. However, some political detainees are in solitary confinement for much longer periods, rights lawyer Mohammed Abdel-Aziz said Monday. “It is a punishment that should not be a standard practice,” he said.

The campaign was inspired mainly by the case of Malek Adly, a prominent rights lawyer who has spent most of the six weeks since his detention in solitary confinement, according to his wife and lawyers.

Ahmed Douma, an iconic figure from the 2011 popular uprising, is said by lawyers to have been in solitary confinement for the past two years. He is serving a 25-year sentence for his alleged part in 2011 riots in central Cairo during which fire broke out at a library containing rare books.

Authorities have detained thousands of dissidents since the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, who was overthrown by the military amid mass protests against his divisive rule. The detainees, mostly Islamists, face legal proceedings, but many are held without charge in what is known as “protective custody.”

The crackdown, believed to be the biggest in decades, has included the jailing of secular, pro-democracy activists who led the 2011 uprising.