By Rana Muhammad Taha

CAIRO, Jan 21 (Aswat Masriya) – At least nine Egyptians have died in custody since mid 2013, mostly due to poor detention conditions, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

The New York-based watchdog's count is based on "evidence from the victims' relatives and lawyers, as well as medical documents," it said in a statement.

Interior Ministry Spokesman Hany Abdel Lattif meanwhile denied the increase in the number of arrests and deaths in custody recently. He told Aswat Masriya that the ministry of interior provides all detainees with "all forms of care", including medical care "when necessary".

HRW said one of the detainees whose death it reported was subjected to physical assault prior to his death. Other cases involved detainees who were in need of "necessary medical treatment or release on medical grounds." A third group of detainees suffered from worsening health conditions due to being kept in overcrowded conditions.

"Egypt's prisons and police stations are bursting at the seams with opposition supporters rounded up by the authorities," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director, in the statement. "People are being held in grossly overcrowded and inhumane conditions, and the mounting death toll is the wholly predictable consequence."

Egyptian authorities have cracked down on public assemblies since the military ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Independent figures suggest that over 41,000 have been arrested since July 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood says authorities have arrested around 29,000 of its members or "suspected supporters", HRW said.

HRW said the influx of detainees "strained Egypt's prisons" and led authorities to keep many suspects in "temporary detention sites."

Interior Ministry Spokesman Abdel Lattif said that the number of detainees held in custody is constantly changing and therefore cannot be tracked, as it is governed by arrest and release orders issued by the prosecution.

Abdel Lattif cast doubt on HRW's credibility, accusing it of failing to adhere to the international standards governing human rights organisations.

HRW cited figures provided by the Justice Ministry's Forensic Medical Authority, which put the number of custody deaths in Cairo and Giza from January to mid-November 2014 at 90 detainees at least. The figures were published in December 2014 by private-owned daily al-Watan.

Custody deaths in 2014 increased by nearly 40 percent, compared to 2013 figures provided by the Forensic Authority, al-Watan reported.

Authority Spokesman Hisham Abdel Hameed could not be reached for comment. He nevertheless told al-Watan in December that the rise in custody deaths was primarily due to "overcrowding defendants in detention facilities inside police stations."

A research conducted by the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights last year concluded that living and health conditions in Egyptian prisons "are not in line with the minimum components of the right to health." The research found fault with both the services' quality and the healthcare staff's competence.

HRW said prosecutors only filed a single case against police relating to detainees' death since mid 2013. The case is that of the death of 37 detainees inside a police van outside Abu Zaabal Prison in August 2013, after security forces allegedly fired a teargas canister into the van.

The vice warden of the Heliopolis Police Station was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2014, while the three other police officers were served a suspended sentence of one year in prison each over the detainees' death. The defendants are currently being retried after an appeals court cancelled their sentences last July.

"The Egyptian authorities have appeared shockingly complacent in the face of so many detainee deaths," Whitson said.

HRW called on the authorities to investigate custody deaths and prosecute security officials "suspected of negligence or abuse." It also urged Egypt's prosecution to release detainees "held solely for exercising their constitutionally protected rights to peaceful protest or political expression." 

Egypt enforced in November 2013 the protest law to regulate peaceful assembly. The law, which landed dozens of protesters in prison, has long been the epicentre of wide criticism by domestic and international human rights organisations which say it violates international standards for peaceful protests.