Activist Mahienour al-Massry begins hunger strike

Activist Mahienour al-Massry has started a hunger strike on Sunday night, in solidarity with Alaa Abd El Fattah and other political detainees, the Freedom to the Brave page announced.

The statement said Massry joined “the detainee of all eras,” referring to Abd El Fattah, as well as “all the detainees of the state of injustice.”

Massry was jailed last May after an appeals court affirmed a two-year sentence against her and eight others for breaking the Protest Law by protesting in front of the Alexandria Criminal Court in early December during the retrial of police forces accused of killing Khaled Saeed.

Last month however, an Alexandria court reduced the sentence to six months and a LE50,000 fine.

Massry joined the wave of a number of groups of political detainees who started hunger strikes demanding justice. Their demands range from better jail conditions to release.

Since her detention, Massry has won the French 2014 Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, given annually to a lawyer for contributions to the defense of human rights. The first award in 1985 was given to South African leader Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment. 

Abd El Fattah had launched an open-ended hunger strike last week, joining a growing number of political prisoners against his detention.

He, along with 24 other activists, is also on trial for violating the Protest Law. On June 11, a court sentenced him and the other defendants to 15 years imprisonment in absentia, along with a LE100,000 fine each. Abd El Fattah was arrested at the court after the verdict was pronounced and a retrial later commenced.

His hunger strike was also partly prompted by a visit to his hospitalized father. Upon arriving at the hospital Abd El Fattah found his father, lawyer Ahmed Seif al-Islam, in a coma. The arrest of his youngest sister, Sanaa Seif, while partaking in a peaceful protest outside Ettehadiya Presidential Palace also contributed to his decision.

Following suit were activist Ahmed Douma, April 6 Youth Movement co-founder Mohamed Adel, Wael Metwally and Mohamed Abdel Rahman, who started a hunger strike in solidarity with Abd El Fattah.

Metwally and Abdel Rahman are among those sentenced to 15 years with Abd El Fattah.