Public figures announce hunger strikes in solidarity with political prisoners

A number of public figures on Tuesday announced plans to go on hunger strike in solidarity with several political prisoners who have launched hunger strikes from their prison cells in recent weeks to protest their continued detention. 

On Tuesday, journalist Karim Yehia, a former candidate to be head of the Journalist Syndicate, announced on his Facebook page that he had started a hunger strike at the Journalists Syndicate headquarters in downtown Cairo in solidarity with imprisoned journalist Hisham Fouad. "I launched this sit-in and strike for the freedom of Hisham and dozens of my fellow journalists, detainees and prisoners of conscience on all stripes,” Yehia wrote. 

Meanwhile, the co-founder of Al Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, Aida Seif al-Dawla, and Mohammed Zaree, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, both announced a one-day hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with Fouad, graduate student Ahmed Samir Santawy, political activist Ahmed Badawi, and other political prisoners in Egypt.

Activist and Mathematics Professor Laila Soueif, lawyer Raga Omran and director of the Arab Initiative for Freedom of Thought and Expression Mohamed Abdel Salam announced on Wednesday that they would also partake in Thursday’s hunger strike.

Fouad began a hunger strike last Saturday to protest his continued detention in remand beyond the two-year legal limit. On Sunday, a judge renewed Fouad’s detention for another 45 days, marking the 25th detention renewal since his arrest in the summer of 2019 as part of the Coalition of Hope case that was levied against an opposition group that had planned to run in the 2020 parliamentary elections. Fouad’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, told Mada Masr that Fouad officially announced his hunger strike on Sunday during the detention renewal session. Ali requested that Fouad be admitted to the prison hospital to monitor his health.

The Coalition for Hope defendants face charges of “forming a group in violation of the law that aims at suspending the constitution and law, preventing state’s institutions and public authorities from conducting their duties, spreading false news and information on the political and economic situation in Egypt with the purpose of undermining public peace and trust in state’s institutions.

Meanwhile, Santawy entered the 21st day of a hunger strike in protest of a four-year prison sentence handed down against him by an emergency court on June 22 on charges of “publishing false news from outside the country about internal affairs.” Verdicts by the emergency state security court cannot be appealed.

Santawy traveled to Egypt on December 23 on vacation from his master's degree at Central European University in Austria. Upon his arrival at Sharm el-Sheikh airport, he was questioned about a thesis he was writing on abortion and Islam. On February 1, he was forcibly disappeared when he presented himself at a National Security Agency office in Cairo’s First Settlement in response to a summons from a security agency that had raided the family home on January 23. Several days later, he was ordered into remand detention by the State Security Prosecution on terrorism and false news charges. 

The imprisoned political activist Ahmed Badawi also launched a hunger strike on June 5 in protest of his remand detention exceeding the two-year limit. Badawi was forcibly disappeared on April 21, 2019, on the second day of voting for a set of constitutional amendments while he was standing alone in a square in the Fifth Settlement holding a sign that read “No to the constitutional amendments.” Badawi appeared before the State Security Prosecution seven days later and was charged with “joining a terrorist group, and using an account on social media networks to commit a legally punishable crime that would pose a threat to the safety and security of the community.”

Since publication, this article was edited to add the names of further public figures who announced their intention to join the hunger strike.