Lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim has served six years in Egyptian prisons, for defending political detainees.
The Egyptian authorities arrested the lawyer Moneim on November 1, 2018. The Cairo Criminal Court, First Terrorism Circuit, rendered a decision in Case No. 1 of 2021, Second Emergency State Security Felonies, M. Nasr, registered under No. 1552 of 2018, Supreme State Security, also known as the “Case of the Members of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms,” on March 5, 2023. Hoda Abdel Moneim was sentenced to five years of hard labor and life in prison, as well as acquittal. Nasr was found guilty of documenting and exposing human rights violations on social media platforms.
Hoda Abdel Moneim has experienced a serious decline in her health since her arrest. She was unable to walk or move due to severe osteoarthritis and cartilage erosion in her knee.
A blood clot in her left leg, high blood pressure, a heart attack, and a total failure of her left kidney occurred as a result of the prison administration’s refusal to move her to an outside hospital for monitoring. After being moved from her cell in Qanater Prison to the new Tenth of Ramadan Prison, where she was deprived of all of her possessions and prescription drugs prior to being moved to her new cell, she is currently facing numerous violations.
Hoda Abdel Moneim, a 63-year-old Egyptian human rights advocate and lawyer, has four daughters. She was a member of the Egyptian House of Representatives from 2012 to 2013 and had previously worked at the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt. Since 2013, Abdel Moneim has been on the list of people prohibited from traveling by the Egyptian government.
The treatment of lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim demonstrates the pressing need to uphold international human rights standards, foster respect for human rights in Egypt, and collaborate with civil society organizations to protect lawyers, human rights defenders, and prisoners in general. It urges the international community to insist on the required advancements and ongoing oversight of the nation’s human rights.
Notably, thousands of people are being arrested by Egyptian authorities for political reasons; many of them were found guilty and sentenced in unfair trials, or they were imprisoned for years without trial on false charges related to terrorism under appalling conditions.
