executing six unarmed men and a 17-yearold boy. DETENTION Torture and other ill-treatment remained routine in official places of detention and was systematic in detention centres run by the National Security Agency. In July, a Coptic man was arrested and detained in Manshyet Nasir police station in the capital, Cairo, in relation to a minor offence; 15 hours later, he was dead. Family members stated that they saw bruises on the upper part of his body, and the official autopsy report stated that his death was the result of a “suspected criminal act”. Prison authorities, including in Tora Maximum Security Prison and Wadi elNatrun Prison, punished prisoners detained for politically motivated reasons by placing them in indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement. In February the Ministry of the Interior amended the prison regulations to allow solitary confinement to be increased up to six months; a practice that can amount to torture or other ill-treatment. Political activist Ahmed Douma spent his third year in solitary confinement in Tora Prison, confined to his cell for at least 22 hours a day. Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Hadad remained indefinitely detained in solitary confinement in Al Aqrab maximum security prison since his arrest on 17 September 2013. Other forms of ill-treatment and medical negligence in prisons continued; dozens of prisoners died, often due to prison authorities refusing to transfer them to hospital for medical treatment. In September, former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef died in prison from pancreatic cancer. UNFAIR TRIALS Hundreds were sentenced, some to death, after grossly unfair mass trials. In September a Cairo criminal court sentenced 442 people in the case of the August 2013 al-Fateh mosque protests to prison terms of between five and 25 years after a grossly unfair trial of 494 defendants. Courts continued to rely 154 heavily on reports of the National Security Agency and unsound evidence, including confessions obtained under torture, in their sentencing. Civilians continued to face unfair trials before military courts; at least 384 civilians were referred to military trials during the year. DEATH PENALTY Ordinary and military courts continued to hand down death sentences following grossly unfair mass trials. In June the Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences of seven men in two different cases after grossly unfair trials. At least six of the men had been subjected to enforced disappearance and tortured to force them to “confess” and the court relied heavily on these coerced confessions in its verdict and sentencing. Also in June, the Military High Court upheld death sentences against four men following grossly unfair trials in which the court relied on “confessions” obtained under torture during 93 days of incommunicado detention.5 On 26 December the authorities executed 15 men who had been convicted by a military court of killing nine military personnel in North Sinai in 2013. WOMEN’S RIGHTS Women and girls continued to face inadequate protection from sexual and gender-based violence, as well as gender discrimination in law and practice. The absence of measures to ensure privacy and protection of women reporting sexual and gender-based violence continued to be a key factor preventing many women and girls from reporting such offences. Many who did report offences faced harassment and retaliation from the perpetrators or their families. In some cases, state officials and members of parliament blamed victims of sexual violence and attributed the incidents to their “revealing clothing”. In March a young student was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob in Zagazig city, al-Sharkia governorate. Instead of arresting the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, the Security Directorate in al-Sharkia governorate Amnesty International Report 2017/18