Close to 30 human rights organizations have called on the Egyptian government for the immediate and unconditional release of well-known pro-democracy activist Mohamed Adel. In a letter released on Wednesday, September 6, the groups also called on the Egyptian authorities to “halt acts of repression and prosecution on political grounds against activists and political opposition figures in Egypt, including recently against the publisher and activist Hesham Kassem, and to uphold the principles of human rights and the rule of law.” The letter comes just days after Adel was sentenced to four years in prison.
Adel, a prominent leader and former spokesperson of the April 6 youth movement, has already spent five years in pre-trial detention after being charged with spreading false news on social media and involvement in an unlawful group, among other crimes. The rights groups denounced these charges as “bogus” and claimed that the activist was being persecuted for exercising his right to free speech and expression.
The letter notes that the verdict against Adel “demonstrates that the Egyptian authorities, including the judiciary, are targeting political activists with bogus charges and subjecting them to unfair trials as a punishment for their peaceful activities, despite presidential initiatives and government statements attempting to imply an improvement in the human rights situation in Egypt.” The prolonged detention of Adel violated the maximum period of pre-trial detention of two years and undermined the guarantee of a fair trial, the groups stated.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International, Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR), Human Rights Watch, EuroMed Rights, Committee for Justice, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Pen America, and Democracy For the Arab World Now are among the signatories to the letter. They urged the Egyptian government to end “violations against individuals exercising their right to express their opinions and practice their constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, the government headed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has embarked on a prolonged campaign of persecution of critics, opposition figures, dissidents, journalists, writers, and human rights activists. Latest reports estimate that the Egyptian authorities have imprisoned approximately 65,000 political prisoners in the last 10 years of el-Sisi’s reign.
The groups state that Adel’s “continued detention not only violates his rights but also serves as further evidence of the ongoing disregard for the rule of law, and the vengeful targeting of activists, even if their activities date back a decade or more.”
