Solitary confinement
The second part of the letter describes the practice of solitary confinement at Scorpion.
"I was placed in a solitary cell five days after being first questioned. The interrogators deprived me of sleep after days of various torture. When it seemed I was nearly going to die, they put me in the cell."
"The cell meant for me sleep and being spared from torture at the time. But I was taken to be tortured again by this huge man in his fifties. After he finished beating me up, he called on the guards to take me to the 'hotel'".
"I was then taken to a dark cell. All I could hear there were the barking of hounds and sounds of prisoners being tortured. But I didn't care. I lay on the ground and fell into deep sleep. When I woke up, I found myself in a room about 1.4 meters wide and 1.4 meters long."
Assir wrote that the were no sources of light in the room except for a small barred window at the top. "I found a bottle with a liquid. I wanted to perform ablution but I found out the bottle was for urinating."
The prisoner was then taken for a new round of torture, as he said.
On another occasion, he was taken to a different solitary cell. "After being designated as extremely dangerous by the interrogators, I was placed on death row, where I was isolated and tortured at the same time.
"The other cell was not that different...there was no ventilation or lighting. It had a pit in the ground and a faucet that rarely had running water."
"The concrete room was very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. I spent days and months in this place devoid of the most basic necessities of life. Others spent years waiting to be hanged."
Deplorable conditions
"I was placed in a solitary cell five days after being first questioned. The interrogators deprived me of sleep after days of various torture. When it seemed I was nearly going to die, they put me in the cell."
"The cell meant for me sleep and being spared from torture at the time. But I was taken to be tortured again by this huge man in his fifties. After he finished beating me up, he called on the guards to take me to the 'hotel'".
"I was then taken to a dark cell. All I could hear there were the barking of hounds and sounds of prisoners being tortured. But I didn't care. I lay on the ground and fell into deep sleep. When I woke up, I found myself in a room about 1.4 meters wide and 1.4 meters long."
Assir wrote that the were no sources of light in the room except for a small barred window at the top. "I found a bottle with a liquid. I wanted to perform ablution but I found out the bottle was for urinating."
The prisoner was then taken for a new round of torture, as he said.
On another occasion, he was taken to a different solitary cell. "After being designated as extremely dangerous by the interrogators, I was placed on death row, where I was isolated and tortured at the same time.
"The other cell was not that different...there was no ventilation or lighting. It had a pit in the ground and a faucet that rarely had running water."
"The concrete room was very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. I spent days and months in this place devoid of the most basic necessities of life. Others spent years waiting to be hanged."
 | Conditions in Egyptian prisons have been largely under scrutiny by local and international human rights organisations. |  |
Conditions in Egyptian prisons have been largely under scrutiny by local and international human rights organisations.
In its 2015/16 annual report, Amnesty International described conditions in Egyptian detention facilities and police stations as "extremely poor".
"Cells were severely overcrowded and unhygienic, and in some cases officials prevented families and lawyers giving food, medicine and other items to prisoners," the report said.
Egyptian security authorities have also been blamed for torturing prisoners, sometimes to death.
In an earlier report, Amnesty International said that torture and other ill-treatment of criminal suspects were "routinely used to extract confessions and punish and humiliate suspects", reportedly leading to several deaths of detainees.
"Commonly reported methods of torture included electric shocks to the genitals and other sensitive areas, beating, suspension by the limbs while handcuffed from behind, stress positions, beatings and rape," the report added.
"Deaths in detention were reported, with some apparently attributable to torture or other ill-treatment or inadequate conditions in police stations."
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/09/27/we-are-tombs/abuses-egypts-scorpion-prison
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