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On 17 May 2009, Fares Barakat suffered serious injuries after being thrown from the fourth floor of an apartment building by an officer of the Egyptian Security Services. He is currently imprisoned at the National Medical Institute in Damanhour.

Alkarama has called upon the Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions and torture to urgently intervene with the Egyptian authorities to assure his adequate treatment and also called for his release or that he brought before justice.

Mr Barakat, 43, works for the Telecom Egypt in Kafr Al-Shiekh and lives in Damanhour. On 17 May 2009, while he was at a party in a friend's apartment, plainclothes officers, members of the Security Service working for the Ministry of the Interior, entered the apartment. They searched the premises, assaulted bystanders and arrested some of them claiming to have warrants.

When Mr Barakat asked to see the warrant, he was forced onto the balcony. When he tried to resist, one of the officers gave the order to throw him over the balcony.  "He was pushed from the fourth floor of the building. He is seriously wounded and his life is in danger because of lack of appropriate care. It is not an adequate hospital. He is being held at the National Medical Institute, handcuffed and under police surveillance."
 
He suffered a fractured right leg, hip and shoulder, three fractures to the pelvis, a fractured nose, fractured three vertebrae, facial injuries, and an accumulation of blood in the stomach and near the liver. He has difficulty breathing because of pressure caused by the accumulation of blood in his abdomen.
 
Requests by his lawyer and his family for transfer to another hospital have been rejected.
 
Mr Barakat was arrested at the same time as 24 other people. All are accused of being members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Alkarama learned that while Mr Barakat was in the extreme conditions in which he finds himself, he was forced to make confessions that are to be used against him during the prosecutor's investigation.
 
Mr Barkat's lawyer has informed the authorities of allegations of torture and ill treatment and called for an investigation, however without success.
 
Egypt has ratified the Convention against Torture on 25 June 1986 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 14 January 1982 and pledged to respect its principles.
 
We recall that Egypt will be considered under the UPR of the Human Rights Council in early 2010. Alkarama will be presenting a report in this regard.