Tora Prison ( '; ) is an Egyptian prison complex for criminal and political detainees, located in
Tora
Tora or TORA may refer to:
People
* Tora (given name), female given name
* Tora (surname)
* Tora people of Arabia and northern Africa
* Torá language, an extinct language once spoken in Brazil
Places
* Tora, Benin, in Borgou Department
* T ...
, Egypt. The complex is situated in front of the Tora El Balad
metro
Metro may refer to:
Geography
* Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...
station. The main buildings in the Tora Prison complex are Tora Agricultural Prison, Tora Liman (maximum security), Tora Istiqbal (reception), Tora El Mahkoum and Tora
Supermax prison
A super-maximum security (supermax) or administrative maximum (ADX) prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the most secure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries.
The objective is to ...
, also known as
Scorpion Prison
The Al-Aqrab Prison (; official name Tora Prison 992 Maximum-Security) is a supermax prison in Helwan, Egypt, south of Cairo. It is used for political prisoners and opponents of the Egyptian government, who include Muslim Brotherhood and April ...
( ').
History
Tora Agricultural Prison was established in 1928 by Wafdist Interior Minister
Mostafa El-Nahas
Mostafa el-Nahas Pasha or Mostafa Nahas (; June 15, 1879 – August 23, 1965) was an Egyptians, Egyptian politician who served as the Prime Minister for five terms.
Early life, education and exile
He was born in Samanud (Gharbia Governorat ...
while he was the interior minister, in an effort to ease overcrowding at Abu Zaabal Prison.
On 1 June 1957, security guards at Tora Prison killed 21
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood ( ''jamāʿat /al-ikhwan/el-ekhwan al-muslimīn'', ) is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement,Eric Trager,The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood", ''Foreign Affairs'', September October 2011, p. ...
prisoners.
Architecture
Tora prison consists of seven blocks each holding approximately 350 prisoners, and are divided into sections such as political prisoners and criminals according to the severity of their crimes. There is a block for police officers and judges imprisoned on bribery charges, and a disciplinary block consisting of seven solitary confinement cells, two meters squared in size and some without light or ventilation.
The prison walls are seven metres tall and are monitored by
CCTV
Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...
. The different sections of the prison are walled off from each other. After three prisoners from the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ; ), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad () and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and then the Jihad Group, or the Jihad Organization, was an Egyptian Islamist group active ...
organization implicated in the
assassination of Anwar Sadat
On 6 October 1981, Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate the victory over Israel in the 1973 war, during which the Egyptian Army had crossed the Suez Canal at the be ...
escaped in 1988, 2.5 meters were added to walls.
Tora Prison has a small hospital overlooking a garden which is the block where businessmen and members of the
Mubarak regime
The history of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak began with the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and lasted until the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, when Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising as part of the broader Arab Sprin ...
are held for corruption cases. The hospital is next to a football pitch and to a tennis court where the prisoners exercise.
The prison has held some of Egypt's most high-profile prisoners. Some cells for long-term inmates are reminiscent of typical, if cramped, apartments (i.e. including a
kitchenette
A kitchenette is a small cooking area, which usually has a refrigerator and a microwave oven, but may have other appliances - for example a sink. They are found in studio apartments, some motel and hotel rooms, college dormitories, office buildings ...
, etc.).
In 2014, a maximum security wing was built to hold
political prisoners
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...
, whose numbers had started increasing since the July 2013 removal of
Mohamed Morsi
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012
Torture
Welcome parades, a technique used in Egyptian prisons in which new prisoners are physically and psychologically abused while crawling between two lines of policemen, was used in Tora Prison in September 2019 during the
2019 Egyptian protests
The 2019 Egyptian protests were mass protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta and other cities on 20, 21 and 27 September 2019 in which the protestors called for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to be removed from power. Security forces responded ...
, when blogger
Alaa Abd el-Fattah
Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam Abd El-Fattah (, ), known professionally as Alaa Abd El-Fattah (), is an Egyptian-British blogger, software developer, and political activist. He has been active in developing Arabic-language versions of software and pl ...
and his lawyer Mohamed el-Baqer of the
Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms
Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms (also: ''Adala and Liberties Centre'') is an Egyptian human rights organisation created in 2014 by lawyers and students, based in Cairo.
Founding and leadership
Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms was cre ...
were subjected to welcome parades following their 29 September arrests.
There have been allegations that the prison was used for other forms of torture and that there was ''
Mukhabarat
(), is the Arabic term for intelligence, as used by an intelligence agency. In most of the Middle East, the term is colloquially used for secret police agents who spy on civilians. Organizations using the name include:
Egypt
* General Intelligen ...
'' (Egyptian intelligence services) complicity with
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism, euphemistically-named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The best-known use of extraordinary rendition is in a United States-led program during th ...
practices during the Mubarak presidency. Tora Prison may have operated in this capacity since 1995/96 (being the most accessible of the few ''liman'', i.e. maximum security prisons), making it one of the first of the black sites of
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Usman Nawaz (; born 2 November 1977) is a British activist and former radio presenter. He was the founding chairman of the think tank Quilliam. Until January 2022, he was the host of an LBC radio show on Saturdays and Sundays. Born in ...
, an Islamist-radical turned counter-extremist from the UK. He was visited in Tora by his lawyer, the future London Mayor,
Sadiq Khan
Sir Sadiq Aman Khan (, ; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting (UK Parliament constituency), Tooting ...
.
* †
Shukri Mustafa
Shukri Mustafa (, ; 1 June 1942 – 19 March 1978) was an Egyptian agricultural engineer who led the extremist Islamist group ''Jama'at al-Muslimin'', popularly known as Takfir wal-Hijra. He began his path toward Islamist thought by joining the Mus ...
(1965–1967), executed by hanging.
*
Wolfgang Lotz
Wolfgang Lotz (; 6 January 1921 – 13 May 1993), who later adopted the Hebrew name Ze'ev Gur-Arie, was an Israeli spy in Egypt during the 1960s providing intelligence and conducting operations against Egyptian military scientists. He was arr ...
(The Champagne Spy) (1965–1968)
*
Abd al-Hamid Kishk
Abdal-Hamid Kishk (10 March 1933 – 6 December 1996) was an Egyptian preacher, scholar of Islam, activist, and author. He was a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo and was known for his humour, popular sermons, religious books and for his ...
(1981–1982)
*
Mustafa Amin
Mustafa Amin (; 21 February 1914 – 13 April 1997) was an Egyptian columnist and journalist who enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the Arab world. Known for his liberal perspective, Mustafa Amin and his twin brother Ali Amin are regarded as t ...
*
Abbud al-Zumar
Aboud El Zomor (also ''Abboud el-Zumar'', ''Abbud el-Zumar'', ''Aboud el-Zomoor'', ''Abboud el-Zomor'', ''Abboud el-Zomor'', ''Abod Zoummar'', , , born August 1948) is an Egyptian Islamist and fundamentalist and former military intelligence colon ...
(1981–2011)
*
Kamal Khalil
Kamal Khalil (, ) is an Egyptian engineer and labour activist. He is a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialists, a representative of the Workers Democratic Party and the founder and director of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. ...
Azzam Azzam
Azzam Azzam (, Levantine Arabic: , ; born 1962) is an Israeli Druze
who was convicted in Egypt of spying for Israel, and jailed for eight years. He maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal.
Arrest and trial
Azzam is from the town of Magha ...
(1997–2004)
*
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an Islamist terrorist group active since the 1970s. The ADL dubbed him the "propaganda chief" of the militant organisation. He was one of 14 people subjected to extraordi ...
(1999/2000 previous to his execution elsewhere)
*
Muhammad al-Zawahiri
Muhammad Rabie al-Zawahiri (; 1952/1953 – 13 February 2024) was an Egyptian Islamist who was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 War on Terror. He was the ...
(1999–?2011, tortured and beaten)
*
Ashraf Shahin
Sharīf or Sherif (, 'noble', 'highborn'), also spelled shareef, feminine sharīfa (), plural ashrāf (), shurafāʾ (), or (in the Maghreb) shurfāʾ, is a title used to designate a person descended, or claiming to be descended, from the famil ...
(early 2000s, reportedly tortured)
*
Ihab Saqr A member of the Vanguards of Conquest, Ihab Abdallah Saqr (, alternatively ''Ihab Muhammad Saqr'') was believed to have coordinated the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad and was a high-priority target for the CIA when he was captured in ...
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr ( ''Ḥassan Muṣṭafā Usāmah Naṣr''; born 18 March 1963), also known as Abu Omar, is an Egyptian cleric. In 2003, he was living in Milan, Italy, from where he was kidnapped and tortured in Egypt. This "''Abu Omar c ...
(2003–?2007, reportedly tortured by electric shocks, beating and rape; see
Abu Omar case
The Abu Omar Case was the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. The case was picked by the international media as one of the better-documented cases of extraordinary rendition ca ...
)
*
Ayman Nour
Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour (, ; born 5 December 1964) is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament, founder and chairman of the El Ghad party.
Nour was the first person to compete against President Hosni Mubarak in the 20 ...
(2005–2009)
*
Hisham Talaat Moustafa
Hisham Talat Moustafa () (born December 9, 1959) is an Egyptian real estate businessman, and former chairman and current head of the real estate branch of the Talaat Moustafa Group. He had been elected in 2004 to the Shura Council in the Parliam ...
(2008–present)
* Blogger
Alaa Abd El-Fattah
Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam Abd El-Fattah (, ), known professionally as Alaa Abd El-Fattah (), is an Egyptian-British blogger, software developer, and political activist. He has been active in developing Arabic-language versions of software and pl ...
and dozens of other civil-rights activists (2006, presumably ''Istiqbal Tura'')
** also in 2019 together with his lawyer Mohamed el-Baqer
*
Alaa Mubarak
Alaa Mohammed Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; ; born 26 November 1960) is an Egyptian businessman and the elder of two sons of Hosni Mubarak, the former President of Egypt who served from 1981 to 2011, and his wife, Suzanne Mubarak.
Early li ...
and
Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Al Din Muhammad Hosni Sayed Mubarak (, ; born 27 December 1963) is the younger of the two sons of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak. In contrast to his older brother Alaa, Gamal had pursued an ...
Safwat El-Sherif
Mohamed Safwat El Sherif (; 19 December 1933 – 13 January 2021) was an Egyptian politician who served as chairman of the State Information Service, minister of information, speaker of the Egyptian Shura Council, and secretary general of the r ...
*
Khairat el-Shater
Mohammed Khairat Saad el-Shater (, ; born 4 May 1950) is an Egyptian engineer, businessman and Islamist political activist. A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as the Deputy Supreme Guide, el-Shater was the initial candidate of the move ...
*
Zakaria Azmi
Zakaria Azmi (; born 26 June 1938) is the former chief of presidential staff in Egypt.
Career
Zakaria Azmi was the National Democratic Party's (NDP) deputy for el-Zeitoun district in eastern Cairo and chief of the presidential staff. He had jo ...
Ahmed Nazif
Ahmed Nazif (, ; born 8 July 1952) served as the prime minister of Egypt from 14 July 2004 to 29 January 2011, when his cabinet was dismissed by President Hosni Mubarak in light of a popular uprising that led to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. N ...
*
Ahmed El Maghrabi
Ahmed Alaeldin Amin Abdelmaksoud El Maghrabi (Arabic: أحمد علاء الدين أمين عبد المقصود المغربي, born 16 May 1945 in Cairo) is an Egyptian- Saudi businessman and former housing minister with the National Democrati ...
*
Anas el-Fiqqi
Anas el-Fiqqi (alternate spelling: Anas El Feki, Anas El-Feki, Anas al-Fiqi, Anas El-Fekky or el-Fiqi) (14 October 1960) is an Egyptian entrepreneur and former state official, well known for being Hosni Mubarak's last minister of information.
Anas ...
*
Habib el-Adly
Habib Ibrahim El-Adly (, ; born 1 March 1938) is a former Egyptian politician. He served as interior minister of Egypt from November 1997 to January 2011. He was the longest serving interior minister under President Hosni Mubarak.
Following the ...
* Tito Momen (sentenced for 15 years because he became a Mormon, released in 2006, went on to write a book titled "My name used to be Muhammad.")
*
Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif
Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif (, ''Sayyid ‘Imām ash-Sharīf''; born 8 August 1950), also known as Dr. Fadl or Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz, El-Zayyat, Montasser, "The Road to al-Qaeda", 2004. tr. by Ahmed Fakry has been described as a "major" figure ...
(2004–present)
*
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st Prime Minister of Egypt, prime minister from 1981 to ...
(2011–2013) incarcerated in April 2011, sentenced for life imprisonment in June 2012, but released in August 2013 after a court found that there were no legal grounds for his continued detention.
* Tarek Loubani and
John Greyson
John Greyson (born March 13, 1960) is a Canadian director, writer, video artist, producer, and Activism, political activist, whose work frequently deals with queer characters and themes. He was part of a loosely affiliated group of filmmakers to ...
, two Canadian citizens arrested in the 2013 Egyptian protests and held for 50 days without charges
*
Mahmoud Abu Zeid
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan (born c. 1987), an Egyptian photojournalist, was arrested for taking photos of the August 2013 Rabaa massacre, Rabaa massacre in Cairo, Egypt and imprisoned during the Post-coup unrest in Egypt (2013–20 ...
, an Egyptian freelance photographer arrested during the
August 2013 Rabaa massacre
On 14 August 2013, the Egyptian police (and to a lesser extent the armed forces), under the command of then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, used lethal force to “disperse” two camps of protesters in Cairo: one at al-Nahda Square and ...
, detained for over two years and then charged
*
Mohamed Soltan
Mohamed Soltan (, born 16 November 1987) is an Egyptian American human rights advocate and former political prisoner in Egypt.
He co-founded and leads the Freedom Initiative, a U.S.-based human rights organization whose mission is "to bring in ...
, human rights activist and civilian journalist, shot during a pro-democracy protest and then arrested without a warrant in his home 10 days later in August 2013. Mohamed is still imprisoned (as of March 28, 2015) in Tora Limon maximum security prison without charge or evidence presented against him. Much of his detention has been spent in solitary confinement, likely a punishment for his international popularity and a hunger strike which he began on January 26, 2014 to protest the inhumane conditions of the prison and the torture and unjustified detention of himself and hundreds of other human rights activists and journalists
* Mustafa Ahmed Hassan Hamza (2014–present)
* †
Mohamed Morsi
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012Essam el-Erian
Essam al-Din Muhammad Hussein el-Erian () (28 April 1954 – 13 August 2020) was an Egyptian physician and politician. He was the vice chairman of the Freedom And Justice Party. Formerly he was a member of the Guidance Bureau of the Muslim Brot ...
(2013–2020) Died in prison of a heart attack.
*
Essam El-Haddad
Essam El-Haddad (; born 1953) is an Egyptian politician. He was a senior advisor for foreign relations for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Freedom and Justice Party. In August 2012, he was appointed as one of four Egyptian Presidential ...
(2013–present)
*
Gehad El-Haddad
Gehad El-Haddad (; born c. 1981) is an Egyptian political activist for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He acted as media spokesman for the Brotherhood from May 2013 until he was arrested on 17 September 2013.
He became the most recognized face of ...
(2013–present)
*
Mohamed Fahmy
Mohamed Fadel Fahmy ( ; born April 27, 1974) is an Egyptian-born Canadian journalist, war correspondent and author. He has worked extensively in the Middle East, North Africa, for CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera English.
Fahmy covered the Iraq Wa ...
(2013 - 2015)
*
Husam Abu al-Bukhari
Husam Abu al-Bukhari is an Egyptian activist, Islamic thinker, physician, and researcher in comparative religion.
Career
He came into limelight after his call for a protest near Al-Nour Mosque in Abbassia in the events of Kamilia Shehata. Aft ...
(2013–present)
*
Ayman Nour
Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour (, ; born 5 December 1964) is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament, founder and chairman of the El Ghad party.
Nour was the first person to compete against President Hosni Mubarak in the 20 ...
(2013–present)
*
Khaled al-Qazzaz
Khaled Al-Qazzaz (Egyptian Arabic: خالد القزاز; pronounced ) (born July 3, 1979) is an educator, philanthropist, and human rights activist based in Egypt and Canada. Al-Qazzaz graduated from the University of Toronto with a master's de ...
(2014–2015)
* Ezzat Ghoniem (2018-present), whose release has been requested by
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
Patrick Zaki
Patrick George Zaki is a Coptic Egyptian postgraduate student at the University of Bologna, Italy, who was detained in Egypt from 7 February 2020 until 9 December 2021. Zaki is pursuing an Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Women and Gender St ...
(2020-2021, reportedly tortured)
Unconfirmed:
*
Ahmad Salama Mabruk
Ahmad Salama Mabruk (; 1956 – 3 October 2016), known as Abu Faraj al-Masri (), was a senior leader in the Syrian militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and was previously a leader in Jabhat al-Nusra and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant gro ...
(1999 – early 2000s?)
*
Essam Marzouk
An Egyptian resident of British Columbia, Essam Hafez Mohammed Marzouk (عصام حافظ محمد مرزوق) arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1993 as a refugee fleeing persecution in Pakistan. He was one of 14 people subjected t ...
(1999–?, reportedly tortured)
*
Abu Ayyub al-Masri
Abu Ayyub al-Masri ( ; , ', translation: "Father of Ayyub the Egyptian"; 1967 – 18 April 2010), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir
(1999–?, based on claim of
Mamdouh Ismail
Mamdouh Ismail () is an Egyptian defence attorney and a former member of "the Jihad group" (later called Egyptian Islamic Jihad), who since the 1980s has represented various Egyptians accused of terrorism offences in Egypt. He was arrested hims ...
and conflicts other reports)
*
Mamdouh Habib
Mamdouh Habib (born 3 June 1955) is an Egyptian and Australian citizen with dual nationality, best known for having been held for more than three years by the United States as an enemy combatant, by both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and ...
(2001/02, reportedly tortured by electric shocks, hanging)
* Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery (2002−2004, reportedly tortured and beaten)
*
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (; born Ali Mohamed Abdul Aziz al-Fakheri; 1963 – May 10, 2009) was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The inform ...
(2002−?2006, reportedly tortured by confinement in a tiny space and beatings)
*Mustafa Sameh Hassanien (May 2020, filmmaker studying at CUNY City University of New York in the US)