The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) expresses deep concern over the life of Mohamed Adel, the former spokesman for the 6 April Movement, who announced his intention to go on hunger strike to protest his ambiguous legal status. EIPR holds the Public Prosecutor and the Ministry of Interior fully responsible for Adel's life and safety.

Adel informed his family on 26 July that he was refusing to receive his daily meal at the Gamasa Maximum security prison, where he is held in preparation for the hunger strike. He said he took the decision to “end his suffering instead of slow death”.

Adel's family submitted complaint No. 45933 of 2024 to the Public Prosecutor’s technical office, stating Adel's decision to go on hunger strike. The family also asked the Public Prosecution to correct Adel’s legal status and to count the period he spent in pretrial detention (two years and seven months) within the four-year jail term he has been serving.

In September 2023, the Aga Misdemeanour Court of Appeal in Mansoura upheld Adel's four-year prison sentence in Case No. 2981 of 2023 on charges of spreading false news on social media. Although five years, of which Adel spent two years and seven months, have passed since he was held in pretrial detention at the time of the verdict issuance, he was notified that his jail term would be counted from the moment the verdict was issued, without counting the years of his pretrial detention. Therefore, Adel is expected to finish serving his term in September 2027, instead of February 2025.

Adel spent the last eleven years of his life restricted in various ways, either by being held in pretrial detention, or being subjected to police surveillance every day for half a day for a period of one and a half years, or by serving prison sentences issued against him. He spent the last six years in detention conditions that contributed to the deterioration of his health. While in detention, he was deprived of proper exposure to sunlight, which caused him knee effusion, knee tendinitis, and shoulder muscle atrophy, which would worsen his health condition in the event of a hunger strike.

Although the National Dialogue has been holding lengthy sessions to discuss proposals on pretrial detention to be submitted to the President of the Republic, pretrial detention continues to be used as a political punishment rather than a precautionary measure. EIPR stresses that this gives conflicting signals about the Egyptian authorities' real position on pretrial detention. This blatant contradiction raises legitimate questions about whether the Egyptian authorities are seriously intending consistency with their repeated promises regarding sorting out the issue of pretrial detention.

EIPR calls on Public Prosecutor Mohamed Shawky Ayyad to quickly implement Article 482 of the Criminal Procedures Law, which states that the period of custodial penalty shall commence as of the day of the arrest of the person sentenced, not from the day of the issuance of the prison sentence. The same article stipulates that the period of pretrial detention shall be deducted from the penalty, which Adel's family demanded in their letter to the Public Prosecutor.

EIPR also calls on the Public Prosecutor to prove Adel’s hunger strike when it begins, take the necessary measures in this regard, and drop all the cases in which Adel is involved and has not been faced with any solid evidence. EIPR supports the demands of Adel's family for the President of the Republic to pardon him to end his unjustified suffering which has been ongoing for 11 years.