Egypt: Detainees

(asked on 4th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy of conditions in detention facilities and (b) appropriateness of the use of extended pre-trial detention periods in Egypt.


Answered by
James Cleverly Portrait
James Cleverly
Home Secretary
This question was answered on 10th June 2020

Egypt is a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights Priority Country and the UK continues to urge the Egyptian Government to ensure the full implementation of the rights and freedoms set out in Egypt's constitution. We have concerns about mass detentions and sentencing, prison conditions, access to justice, and restrictions on freedom of expression and the media. We regularly raise these and other issues with the Egyptian Government, both in public and in private, and including at Ministerial level.

During Egypt's Universal Periodic Review in the United Nations Human Rights Council in November 2019, we called upon the Egyptian Government to ensure access to medical care and family visits in prisons, and to release all those detained for exercising the right to freedom of expression. We also raised the issue of extended pre-trial detention in our questions ahead of the Universal Periodic Review. On prison conditions, the Egyptian Government has undertaken to follow up our Universal Periodic Review recommendation.

In addition to these issues, we regularly raise specific cases with the Egyptian authorities, including that of Mohamed el-Baqer, on 17 February. The Foreign Secretary also raised human rights issues with his Egyptian counterpart at this year's UK-Africa Investment Summit.

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