Since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took power in 2014, the Egyptian regime has only increased its use of repressive measures against critics.
An Egyptian judge has rejected the appeal of Egyptian political activist Mohamed Adel, regarding the decision to detain him, initially for 45 days, pending a 2018 case.
Adel has been accused of ‘broadcasting false news’, ‘misusing social media’, ‘sharing the aims of a terrorist organisation.’
Adel had criticised the IMF’s role in Egypt, and the regime’s use of the death sentence.
Adel faces three cases. He has been held in pre-trial detention since his 2018 arrest, during which he has suffered various forms of mistreatment.
The first session of Adel’s trial on charges of ‘spreading false news inside and outside the country’ began on 4 March this year. Another trial was postponed, in order to give the defence time to inspect papers related to the charge, which they had not been fully provided by the prosecutor.
Adel has spent approximately one third his life imprisoned or under some kind of legal restriction. Over the last eight years he has spent only a few months free.
Adel’s current bout of imprisonment began in June 2018, when he was arrested whilst under police supervision for a previous offence.
As he was preparing to leave Aga Police Station in the Dakahlia Governorate, where he had been ordered to be present due to a charge of ‘unlawful assembly’, he was arrested on a new charge.
Adel, born on 8 August 1988, is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, which called for a general strike in 2008. He served as the movement’s official spokesman during the last years of rule of the former President Hosni Mubarak.
Since 2014 the Egyptian regime has arrested, detained, and trialed 1000s of activists and critics, many of whom have suffered blatantly unfair trials; many others have not been given a trial at all. Conditions of detention in the country are infamously bad, with torture and other forms of mistreatment widespread.
