Detainees in isolation urge Egypt to intervene

Detainees have urged Egyptian leaders to pressure Israel to implement its commitment to end solitary confinement, two of their lawyers said Monday. Israel agreed in May to end solitary confinement after some 2,000 detainees launched a month-long hunger strike in protest against Israeli prison policies including isolation. Detainees Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, and Awad al-Saidi, 33, are both in solitary confinement and have appealed to Egypt's President Mohammad Mursi and the head of Egyptian intelligence to intervene, their lawyers said. Abu Sisi disappeared from a train in Ukraine in February 2011 and Israel later announced that it was holding him in a southern Israeli jail. The father-of-six told prisoners society lawyer Kareem Ajwa that he suffers poor eyesight and was refused medical help. Meanwhile, al-Saidi told Rami al-Alami, a lawyer for the PA Ministry of Prisoner Affairs, said he was transferred to isolation on April 5 because he hit an Israeli guard after being beaten by four guards. After the attack, al-Saidi was taken to an empty room in Nafha jail where he says he was beaten for almost an hour. He was later taken to Beer Sheva court and sentenced to isolation in Ramon prison. "In addition to solitary confinement I am banned from buying anything from the prison store for six months and banned from family visits also for six months and my cell is in a very bad condition," al-Saidi said. Al-Saidi, from al-Nuseriat refugee camp in Gaza, was detained on Feb. 12, 2004 and sentenced to 15 years.