Egyptian TV presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drugs charges. She denies the charges and is currently held in Badr Prison Complex, around 40 miles northeast of Cairo, a facility that numerous international human rights organisations have accused of “egregious and collective violations of human rights”.
Drugs conviction and appeal
Khalifa, best known for starring in a TV show about crime called Mission Impossible, was sentenced alongside 11 others. According to Egypt's state-owned al-Ahram newspaper, the group were part of a criminal gang that imported ingredients used to make drugs with intentions to sell them. The court heard that authorities seized more than 1,653lbs of drugs and the ingredients needed to make them.
Khalifa's lawyers are reportedly seeking to appeal the guilty sentence.
Conditions at Badr Prison Complex
The prison, which opened in 2021, has been accused of subjecting prisoners to sexual harassment, electric shocks, and a range of torture techniques, including being chained to the walls for days without food or water. Less than a year after opening, at least four deaths were reported at the facility, and in at least three of those cases, authorities failed to respond to calls for medical assistance, human rights organisations have alleged.
In October 2022, Amnesty International stated: “Prisoners are held in horrific and punitive conditions comparable to or even worse than those consistently documented at Egypt’s notorious Tora Prison Complex.” The organisation added: “Detainees shiver in cold cells with fluorescent lights switched on round the clock; CCTV cameras are trained on them at all hours; and access to basic necessities such as sufficient food, clothing and books is banned.”
Wider condemnation and hunger strikes
In 2023, 38 global human rights organisations came together to condemn the prison facility and its practices. The charities have also claimed inmates have allegedly received electric shocks in response to asking for better conditions inside the prison. In October 2022, an inmate named Omar Mohamed Ali was allegedly victim to sexual abuse by prison staff after he was transferred to the facility, the charities claim.
In August 2024, 10 human rights charities wrote an open letter blasting the “recent and rapid deterioration of conditions” inside the complex. The letter read: “We are alarmed by recent reports of suicide attempts and a mass hunger strike in response to widespread power cuts in Badr 1 prison, which have subjected prisoners to dangerous and life-threatening conditions. We are also alarmed by the reports of an ongoing hunger strike in Badr 3 prison due to collective violations of detainees’ rights.”
The letter also claimed authorities allegedly cut off electricity at the prison facility for eight days during an extreme heatwave, leaving detainees in “miserable, inhumane conditions threatening their health and wellbeing.”
