On the 9th anniversary .. Ten icons of the January 25 revolution in Sisi prisons

Middle East Eye published 10 names of what he described as the icon of the January 25 Revolution, which toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime in 2011, and said they were among the thousands of politicians who are in the prisons of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The British website notes that Human Rights Watch is talking about thousands arrested randomly, and hundreds have faced death sentences in mass trials since 2013 when Sisi overthrew the rule of late President Mohamed Morsi.

The Sisi government denies the existence of political prisoners, and justifies its campaign against dissidents as part of the war on terrorism.

Middle East Eye lists the cases of ten of those arrested, and human rights organizations consider their detention to be politically motivated.

Israa Abdel-Fattah, 41, was arrested in October 2019, and her health was deteriorated after her hunger strike on December 8, in protest at the authorities' neglect of her complaint of being tortured.

Abdel Fattah faces charges of joining a banned group, publishing fabricated news, and misusing social media, charges that she denies in full and detail.

The arrest of Isra Abdel-Fattah came as part of a campaign launched by the authorities in September against the largest popular protests against corruption in the Sisi government, although Israa did not join these protests.

Israa was prominent in her contribution to the founding of the April 6, 2008 movement with Ahmed Maher, to promote the rights of Egyptian workers, and this movement was part of the January 25, 2011 revolution.

Prior to her arrest, Israa worked as a journalist and social media specialist for the pro-government Al-Youm Al-Sabe newspaper.

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, 37, who has been detained since September 29, 2019, is a prominent voice on the Egyptian left, and faces charges of "belonging to an illegal organization" and spreading false news.

According to his lawyer, Abdel Fattah has been beaten, threatened and robbed in prison since his arrest, and he was previously arrested on charges of joining unlicensed demonstrations in 2013, and was released in March 2019.

Mahinor Al-Masry, 34, is a human rights-winning lawyer and has been arrested three times since Sisi's accession to power.

Mahinur's last detention was on September 24, when she was arrested outside the State Prosecutor's Office, where she was representing detainees accused of joining illegal protests.

In addition to her legal career, Mahinor is a pro-democracy activist, and she has participated in organizing protests and events in solidarity with political prisoners and in promoting judicial independence.

She was arrested twice in 2015 and 2017, on charges of going out in demonstrations calling for the release of politicians.

Ziad Al-Alimi, a lawyer and former MP, is one of the prominent faces of the 2011 revolution, and was arrested in June 2019 along with a number of liberal activists.

The name Al-Alimi glowed after he worked as a spokesman for the protest movement, which was called the Revolutionary Youth Alliance.

His friends have repeatedly warned of suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and a breathing crisis, which could lead to a deterioration of his health in prison.

Muhammad Al-Qassas, a leader of the Youth Alliance that helped organize the 2011 revolution, was arrested on February 8, 2018, on charges of joining the Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false news.

Al-Qassas is the vice president of the "Strong Egypt Party", which called for a boycott of the presidential elections in 2018, when Sisi ran in the elections without competitors.

Al-Qassas was released on the eighth of last month after he was detained for two years in solitary confinement, and then he was re-arrested on January 21st, as part of what human rights organizations said was "recycling the case."

Abdel-Moneim Abu El Fotouh, 69, is the founder and president of the Strong Egypt Party after his defection from the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011, and a supporter of the January revolution against the Hosni Mubarak regime.

Aboul Fotouh has been in pretrial detention since February 2018, on charges of spreading false news to harm national interests, prior to Sisi's presidential elections.

It is noteworthy that Aboul Fotouh ran in the 2012 elections, and came in fourth with 17.4%.

Mohamed El-Beltagy, Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood, and one of the prominent political figures who participated in the 2011 revolution in Tahrir Square, was previously elected a deputy in the 2005 and 2012 parliament.

Al-Beltagy is a doctor and lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, and has been in solitary confinement since 2013. His 17-year-old daughter Asma was among the hundreds killed in the Rabaa al-Adawiya Square massacre on August 14, 2013, and his son Anas was arrested in December. 2013.

Shadi Al-Ghazali Harb, a youth leader of the 2011 revolution, organized protests against Morsi, supported his isolation with a 2013 coup, and later became a critic of Sisi.

Harb was arrested in May 2018, and he is currently in prison on trial on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization, spreading false news and calling for terrorist acts.

Hoda Abdel Moneim, 60, is an activist and lawyer, and has been in detention since November 1.

Hoda played an important role in the 2011 revolution, was a member of the National Council for Human Rights, and resigned from her post after Sisi came to power in 2013.

Issam Sultan, 56, is a lawyer and is the vice president of the Wasat Party, which was founded by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sultan was elected a member of parliament in the first parliamentary elections after the revolution, and he was a member of the "Kefaya" movement and the "National Assembly for Change".

Sultan, who opposed the removal of Morsi, has been in a solitary cell in the notorious Scorpion Prison since his arrest in July 2013.