Update: On May 10, 2024, 80 human rights organizations reiterated their call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release prominent political activist and former spokesperson of the April 6 Youth Movement, Mohamed Adel, amid mounting concern over his cruel and inhuman detention conditions and denial of adequate medical care. Mohamed Adel has already been arbitrarily detained for five years solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

Mohamed Adel is a prominent political activist and former spokesperson of the April 6 Youth Movement. In March 2024, Egyptian National Security Agency officials threatened him with solitary confinement or transfer to a harsher prison in retaliation for his request for better prison conditions. Adel has been imprisoned under cruel and inhumane conditions. Since May 2022, he has been denied medical care for serious health issues, including peripheral neuropathy and knee inflammation, while the Gamassa prison authorities have deprived him of adequate food and banned him from accessing books.

Adel has been arbitrarily detained for exercising his rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Between 2018 and 2023, he endured five years of abusive pretrial detention. In September 2023, he was convicted of spreading “false news” on social media and sentenced to four years in prison, solely for his peaceful activism. His prison term is set to end in September 2027, but ongoing investigations into similar charges may extend his imprisonment.

Adel has been a target of the Egyptian authorities for over a decade, previously serving a three-year sentence for participating in unauthorized protests in 2013. His case exemplifies the severe crackdown on civic space and the targeting of peaceful activists in Egypt.