The family of an Egyptian prisoner, Jihad Abdelghani, have made a public appeal “for an urgent intervention to save his life”, after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Abdelghani’s family report that he requires urgent medical treatment to save his life. He is currently held in Zagazig prison, north of Cairo.
Abdelghani, whose full name is Jihad Abdelghani Mohamed Salim, has been imprisoned since September 2015. He was detained, like 10s of 1000s of Egyptians, for expressing political opinions.
His family report that he was “disappeared” for the first 30 days of his detention, and that he was tortured in order to extract a confession.
In their appeal, Abdelghani’s family have called for an intervention “to save his [Abdelghani’s] life and allow him to leave prison and undergo scheduled surgery, as urgently required after he developed cancer whilst in prison.”
A recent trip to a prison hospital revealed that tumours in Abdelghani’s mouth and throat are cancerous, the family report.
The prisoner’s family have criticizsd the “intransigence of the prison administration”, which they report “threatens his life”.
This is the second public appeal Abdelghani’s family have made in response to his deteriorating, life-threatening health condition. The first was in December last year.
