Egypt’s Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik has authorized the construction of a new prison at Abu Zaabal, within the existing prison complex in Qalyoubia Governorate, northeast of Cairo. The facility will be named Abu Zaabal 4 Public Correction and Rehabilitation Center.
The ministerial decree, published in the Official Gazette on Monday, states that the facility will implement custodial sentences under Law No. 396 of 1956, which governs correction and rehabilitation centers.
The law mandates that public correctional centers house people sentenced to more than three months in prison—unless the remaining sentence is shorter at the time of judgment.
A history of detention and disaster
The Abu Zaabal and Marg prison zones, situated roughly 30 kilometers from Cairo, already contain three major prisons: Abu Zaabal 1 and 2—both high-security facilities—and Abu Zaabal Military Prison, also referred to as Abu Zaabal Industrial or Maximum Security Prison.
According to the Egyptian Front for Human Rights/EFHR, the Abu Zaabal complex has long been associated with the detention of political opponents, especially in the years leading up to the January 25 uprising of 2011.
The prison gained infamy after the August 2013 prison van massacre, when 38 detainees suffocated to death after being crammed into a vehicle designed for 25.
A surge in prison construction
The new facility forms part of a broader carceral expansion under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. In 2021, authorities ordered the construction of central prisons in Aswan, Kafr El-Sheikh, Fayoum, and Gharbiya, followed by approvals for three more prisons later that year. In April 2024, the Interior Ministry also announced five new geographic rehabilitation centers.
By June 2023, Minister Tawfik had greenlit the creation of six additional public prisons in Cairo’s 15 May City, each named 15 May Correction and Rehabilitation Center, numbered 1 through 6.
This prison boom mirrors controversial amendments to Egypt’s prison law issued by President El-Sisi in March 2022, which rebranded ‘prisons’ as ‘community correction and rehabilitation centers,’ and introduced mandates for literacy programs and education access for inmates.
Under Egypt’s revised detention law, incarceration facilities are divided into three categories. Public correction and rehabilitation centers are designated for individuals convicted of crimes with sentences exceeding three months.
Geographic rehabilitation centers typically accommodate those convicted of misdemeanors and are generally affiliated with local police stations.
Meanwhile, specialized correction and rehabilitation centers, established by presidential decree, are tailored to specific inmate populations, with customized conditions for both incarceration and release.
