Egypt's most notorious political detainee, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, begins hunger strike
Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, in a photo dated September 22, 2014. AP - Nariman El-Mofty
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Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a central figure in the 2011 revolution and Egypt's most famous political detainee, has been on hunger strike since Saturday April 2 to denounce his detention, his mother Laila Soueif announced on Monday April 4.
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“
He refuses to eat because his prison situation must change.
He is placed under enhanced surveillance, in solitary confinement.
He is not entitled to books, to physical exercise and this prison is notorious for not respecting any law
”, explained his mother, Laila Soueif.
In December, Alaa Abdel Fattah, 40, was
sentenced to five years in prison
for “
spreading false information
”, his former lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer and blogger Mohamed Ibrahim, alias Oxygen, four years.
Sentenced by a special court, they have no right to appeal.
His sister Mona Seif tweeted that she visited her brother in prison on Monday, where he refused to take the food she had brought him because "
he had been on a hunger strike since the first day of the Ramadan
(Saturday)”.
A central figure in the popular uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak
in the Arab Spring, Alaa Abdel Fattah holds a sad record: he has been imprisoned under every president of Egypt for more than a decade.
His last arrest dates back to September 2019
after rare protests against current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has gradually muzzled the population since he came to power in 2013.
The country has 60,000 prisoners of conscience, including according to Amnesty International.
"
Peaceful activists, human rights defenders, lawyers, academics and journalists detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association
."
Among them is the former unsuccessful candidate for the only democratic presidential election in Egypt in 2012, Abdel Moneim Aboul Foutouh, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization declared "
terrorist
" by the government.
His family said in a statement that he had "
suffered a barbaric attack on March 23 by an officer
" in his prison in a suburb of Cairo, holding "
the regime responsible for his life and his physical and mental health.
".
(With
AFP
)
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Egypt
Human rights
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi