Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Gaffar decided on Saturday to establish a central prison in the city of El Tur, the capital of the South Sinai governorate, state-run news agency MENA reported.
The agency quoted anonymous security sources, saying that the prison will be allocated to defendants who received judicial sentences and are residents of the South Sinai governorate.
According to a recent report issued by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) in September, there are 504 detention centres in Egypt, and the number of prisoners in Egypt by mid-August 2016 reached around 106,000 prisoners, including 60,000 political prisoners.
Only in 2015, 28 people died due to poor living standards and health conditions while in detention, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.
The commission and other non-governmental organisations have reported that there were approximately 1,500 cases of enforced disappearance in 2015.
Families of those in detention have submitted complaints and organised protests in front of the Press Syndicate calling for improvements to prison conditions and proper medical treatment for those detained. They have claimed that their relatives’ health has deteriorated while in detention due to the unclean and inhumane atmosphere.