Egypt: Immediately and unconditionally release prominent political activist Mohamed Adel - Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)

The 80 undersigned human rights organizations reiterate their call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release prominent political activist and former spokesperson of the April 6 Youth Movement, Mohamed Adel, amid mounting concern over his cruel and inhuman detention conditions and denial of adequate medical care. Mohamed Adel has already been arbitrarily detained for five years solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

In March 2024, National Security Agency (NSA) officials threatened to place Mohamed Adel in solitary confinement or transfer him to a different prison with notoriously cruel detention conditions, in retaliation against his request for better prison conditions.

Since 30 May 2022, the Egyptian authorities have been denying Mohamed Adel access to medical care for his various health conditions, including peripheral neuropathy, inflammation in the knee joints and chest pains that were never diagnosed due to lack of access to specialized doctors. The Gamassa prison authorities, where he is held, also deprive Mohamed Adel of access to adequate food, further negatively affecting his health. The prison authorities also continue to ban him from having access to any books in violation of the Egyptian prison laws and regulations.

Mohamed Adel spent five years in abusive and arbitrary pretrial detention between 2018 and 2023. In September 2023, a misdemeanour court in Aga, Mansoura governorate, convicted him of spreading “false news” on social media and sentenced him to four years in prison in a case stemming solely from his peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression. According to one of his defence lawyers, Mohamed Adel will complete his prison term in September 2027, as his pretrial detention is related to investigations into a separate case into similar bogus charges.

Mohamed Adel is also facing other open criminal investigations in relation to the peaceful exercise of his human rights, which may enable the authorities to keep him in prison following the completion of his prison sentence.

The Egyptian authorities have been targeting Mohamed Adel for over a decade. Mohamed Adel already served an unjust three-year prison sentence following his wrongful conviction in relation to his participation in unauthorized protests in 2013 under the draconian Law No. 107 of 2013, which effectively criminalized peaceful protests. A year and a half after his release, during which he was subjected to abusive probation measures, he was re-arrested in June 2018 over his peaceful exercise of his human rights.

Mohamed Adel’s case shows the escalating crackdown on civic space and relentless targeting of peaceful activists in Egypt, punishing them simply for exercising their right to express their opinions in an attempt to crush any form of dissent.

We therefore urge the immediate and unconditional release of Mohamed Adel from detention. His case is emblematic of the authorities’ targeting of activists based on their opinions and peaceful activism.

We also call on the Egyptian authorities to end the arbitrary detention and unjust prosecution of all political activists, members of opposition parties, trade unionists, workers, protesters, journalists, lawyers, social media users, and others detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their human rights.

The signatory organizations

MENA