The Human Rights and Justice Movement [IHAK] has publicly announced its report on torture, ill-treatment and other human rights violations in Egypt's Tora/Scorpio Prison, which has been intensifying in recent years, at a press conference it held.

Speaking at the press conference, IHAK President Atty. Cihat Gökdemir said that during the preparation process, they were interviewing with the victims, prisoners, detainees' families and lawyers, also had requested a review with the Egyptian Justice Ministry and the Egyptian Chief Public Prosecutor's Office related to Scorpion Prison but could not get a positive return.

Referring to the recent violations of human rights in Egypt, Gökdemir said, "Egyptian's freedom of press and freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are obstructed. The places where violence is most intense are prisons. Detention centers and prisons have almost become torture centers."

IHAK Vice President Atty. Gülden Sönmez said that it is almost impossible to carry out human rights work in Egypt and said that this center, known as the Scorpio Prison, should actually be under the Ministry of Justice but actually it is under the leadership of the National Security Service.

Referring to the death events in the prison, Sönmez said that 6 people were killed in Scorpio Prison but there is information and hear about serious deaths in the prisons throughout Egypt. Sönmez said: "In the complains came from prisons which we have evidence, there are; beaten, starved, kept in cells for a long time, kept in lonely or crowded wards, raping male prisoners, being naked, no bed, all prisoners lying on concrete floors, threatened prisoners' families and relatives, and access to health facilities for elderly prisoners."

Sena el-Beltagy, the mother of Asmaa el-Beltagy the martyr of the military coup in Egypt, also attended the meeting. Having her husband and one of her sons in prison in Egypt, mother el-Beltagy stated that the Scorpion Prison is a center like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that an official said previously that they had opened the Scorpion Prison here to kill prisoners inside.

ILKHA