On Friday, the Egyptian Public Prosecution decided to release Ola Youssef Al-Qaradawi, pending investigations.
Al-Qaradawi was arrested along with her husband, Hossam Khalaf, on June 30, 2017, and they were arbitrarily detained in Case No. 316 of 2017 for more than two years and without presenting them with a legal justification for renewing their detention.
On July 3, 2019, the Cairo Criminal Court issued a decision to release Ola Al-Qaradawi, but the Egyptian authorities refused to release her and involved her in another case before the State Security Prosecution. She was interrogated over the same charges in addition to another new charge of “financing a terrorist group during her imprisonment, using her relationships.”
Aya Hossam Khalaf, the daughter of Ola Al-Qaradawi, said that her mother began an open strike on July 11, stressing that her life was in danger, “as her health is not strong enough to go through this long period of the strike.”
In a video, Aya stressed that her mother’s decision to endanger her life, was in objection to her arbitrary detention for four years, without knowing the reasons for her detention of the date of her release.
She said that her mother completed another two years in the second case, and lost hope in everything, and could no longer tolerate this injustice; therefore she went on a hunger strike, noting that during her last court session, she informed her lawyer that she was feeling dizzy before she went on hunger strike, and the prison authorities sent her to the hospital, which supplied her with solutions.
She indicated that her mother’s lawyer told the family that her mental and physical health was very poor, asking: “What is more than four years of pretrial detention for my father and mother to leave prison and return to our family?”
Al-Qaradawi’s daughter held the Egyptian authorities responsible for her mother’s health, calling for her and her husband’s immediate and unconditional release, as they did not commit any crime.
The defence team quoted “Ola” as confirmed during the investigation sessions that “she did not commit any act in violation of the law, and that her arrest and pretrial detention is simply for being the daughter of the thinker Youssef Al-Qaradawi.”
