Family, lawyer raise concerns about mental health of imprisoned activist Alaa Abd El Fattah after years in prison

The imprisoned activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has signaled that he is contemplating suicide, his lawyer Khaled Ali said in a statement on Monday night.

“I’m in terrible conditions,” Ali quoted Abd El Fattah as saying to the judge that was reviewing his remand detention, “I can’t carry on like this. Get me out of prison. I’ll commit suicide.”

Abd El Fattah has been held in remand at Maximum Security Wing 2 of Tora Prison Complex pending investigation for almost two years — the maximum time that prisoners can be held without trial in Egypt. 

A court session on Monday was held to review his remand detention orders, and though security forces transported Abd El Fattah from his place of detention to the courthouse, he was not allowed to attend the renewal session itself. After the session was completed, Abd El Fattah demanded that he be given a chance to speak with the judge to express his concerns about the conditions he was being kept in, his lawyer said.

After his family and lawyer published statements on Monday night expressing their concern that Abd El Fattah could be suicidal, his sister announced on Tuesday afternoon that she had received a handwritten letter from her brother in which he apologized for worrying them, explaining that he was struggling with the conditions of his detention but that he would do his best to withstand them.

In a statement on Tuesday, his family said he has been kept in poor conditions since his arrival to prison and that he has increasingly been deprived of his rights in detention over recent months, despite their having submitted complaints against prison authorities. Abd El Fattah has had no access to reading materials, sunlight or clean water.

“Alaa is in imminent danger,” they wrote. “His mental health is failing after two years of careful planning and cruel implementation by the Interior Ministry and National Security Agency. His life is in danger, in a prison that operates completely outside the space of the law and with the complete disregard of all officials, foremost among them the public prosecutor, the interior minister, the justice minister, and of course the president,” the statement read.

Abd El Fattah, a blogger and software technician whose writing was prominent among some of the intellectual currents that shaped the 2011 Revolution, has been held in prison multiple times since 2006.

Lawyer Khaled Ali noted that his client said on Monday that since 2011, “I have not spent a full year outside of detention.”

Abd El Fattah served a five-year prison sentence in relation to a protest held at the Shura Council in November 2013 against a constitutional provision allowing civilians to face military trials. Though he was released on probation in March 2019 he was arrested again in September 2019, and has been held since on suspicion of belonging to an illegal organization and spreading false information.

His detention has been renewed by the State Security Prosecution on a routine basis. 

Earlier this year, a collection of translated writings he wrote in prison were announced to be under preparations for publishing by October 20, 2021, by the independent publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK. The title of the collection is set to be You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.

At least two other young men held in Egypt’s detention facilities have already attempted suicide this year. Both were arrested in September 2019 during a security crackdown that saw thousands arrested as authorities responded to popular protests held nationwide against government corruption.

In July, Mohamed Ibrahim, a blogger who has been held in remand detention since September 2019, attempted suicide after months of being deprived of visits from his family or lawyers. A member of the activist April 6 Youth Movement, Abdel Rahman Tarek, known as Mocha, also attempted suicide on August 4. First arrested in 2013, Tarek served a three-year prison sentence with three years’ probation. He was released but arrested again in September 2019.