EGYPT'S State Information Services (SIS) organised a guided tour on Monday for 200 public figures, correspondents and photographers from local and foreign media to Tora Prison Complex. The tour, which was co-organised by the Interior Ministry, included a seminar held inside the prison about the conditions of Egyptian prisons and the ministry's services provided to inmates across the country. The seminar discussed the development of prisons' hospitals in addition to the human rights situation in prisons. Moreover, the social, health, educational, and cultural care provided to prisoners was also discussed. During the tour, the delegation visited an exhibition of the prison's products which saw a display of furniture made by prisoners, an animal farm, a metal furniture workshop, and one of the newly painted wards of the prison hospital. The visiting delegation also watched a football match between the prisoners. A day earlier, the SIS stated that the Egyptian authorities “have nothing to fear with regard to the practices in prisons”, adding that reports on the lack of medical care or torture in Egyptian prisons were “pure rumours”. The SIS released a video covering a recent visit by the prosecutors to the same Tora Prison Complex on 22 October. “The video shows the real situation regarding healthcare services and food supply in Egyptian prisons, and the real psychological and cultural conditions of prisoners in Tora Prison,” the SIS said in a statement, adding that Tora prison represents a sample of the actual situation in other Egyptian prisons. The prison visits came a few days before the UN Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) Universal Periodic Review session on Egypt, held on Wednesday 13 November. Egypt's Minister of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Omar Marwan, and the head of Egypt's National Council for Human Rights, Mohamed Fayek, headed to Geneva on Sunday to attend and represent the Egyptian side in the UNHRC session. *A version of this article appears in print in the 14 November, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
