The United Nations called for an independent investigation for the death of the first democratically elected president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi.
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement in which he said:
“Concerns have been raised regarding the conditions of Mr. Morsi’s detention, including access to adequate medical care, as well as sufficient access to his lawyers and family, during his nearly six years in custody. He also appears to have been held in prolonged solitary confinement.’’
By urging an impartial probe into whether the conditions of Morsi’s detention had an impact on his death, the United Nations could bring more pressure on Egypt’s government to launch a proper inquiry. The calls for such an investigation have, until now, been from Morsi’s supporters and human rights groups, which the government has dismissed as politically motivated, U.N. joins call for an independent probe in the controversial death of Egypt’s ousted president Morsi, The Washington Post reports.
Morsi was elected as president back in 2012. According to a Facebook post by his son, Ahmad Morsi, the Egyptian authorities did not allow his family to bury him in his family’s graveyard, located in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya. The authorities stated that Morsi probably died of a heart attack, as he was known to have suffered from diabetes and liver disease.
The Muslim Brotherhood described Morsi’s death as a murder. The top members of the Muslim Brotherhood are currently in exile all over the world, mostly in Turkey.
Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said that Morsi’s death followed years of government mistreatment and that his medical care was inadequate.
“At the very least, the Egyptian government committed grave abuses against Morsi’s by denying him prisoners’ rights that met minimum standards,’’ she said.
Be the first to comment