Cairo - A group of 33 detained Egyptians held in the notorious Burj al-Arab prison, more than 320 kilometres north-west of Cairo, have gone on a hunger strike to protest of their mistreatment, according to local rights groups. The detainees are mistreated, terrorized by trained dogs and banned from health care, the Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights claimed in a report released Tuesday.
Some of the detainees belong to the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, a conservative Islamic group at loggerheads with the ruling regime.
Coinciding with this report is another by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders about Burj al-Arab inmate Abdel-Karim Suleiman, a blogger better known by the alias Karim Amer. The report, also published Tuesday, voiced concern about Amer's health.
Amer's lawyers had filed a complaint on Monday accusing a prison official "of conspiring to have him mistreated and holding him in solitary confinement."
Amer was jailed for slamming the ruling regime and lashing out at religious authorities. He was charged with "inciting hatred of Islam" and insulting the head of the state in February.
Amer wrote several letters from prison in which he mentioned being subjected to "physical and moral" torture, according to the report, in addition to being "handcuffed and beaten and then thrown into an isolation cell, where he was given hardly any food or water."
"I have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," read one of his letters.
