Twenty-eight Egyptian and international human rights organizations have denounced the recent verdict sentencing political activist and former spokesperson for the April 6 Youth Movement, Mohamed Adel, to four years in prison. This comes after five years of his pretrial detention, in a case related to the exercise of peaceful expression. The organizations argue that this judgment highlights the Egyptian authorities, including the judiciary, targeting political activists with unfounded charges and conducting unfair trials to punish them for their peaceful activities, despite presidential initiatives and government statements attempting to suggest an improvement in the human rights situation in Egypt.
Furthermore, these organizations demand the immediate release of Mohamed Adel and all prisoners of conscience in Egypt. On September 2nd, a court in Aga Al-Mansoura issued the four-year prison sentence in case number 2981 of 2023, accusing Adel of spreading false news on social media. He has already served two years and seven months in pretrial detention, leaving him with a remaining sentence of one year and five months and the possibility of continued detention in other cases after serving his sentence.
The signatory organizations stress that since Mohamed Adel’s arrest in June 2018, within Aga Police Station while serving probation for a previous case, he has faced an unfair trial, including prolonged detention with unfounded charges, such as belonging to an illegal group and spreading false news, in violation of the maximum limit for pretrial detention and undermining fair trial guarantees.
Additionally, Adel was previously falsely accused in case number 5606 of 2018, based on a malicious complaint by a citizen in Aga, of belonging to an illegal group and spreading false news in Mansoura. Shortly after, he faced similar charges in case number 4118 of 2018 in Sharbin. In 2020, Adel was brought before the State Security Prosecution, where he faced new charges in case number 467 of 2020, nearly mirroring previous accusations. It’s worth mentioning that Adel was unjustly imprisoned alongside other activists at the end of 2013 for three years, until early 2017, on charges related to unauthorized protests, based on the law on the regulation of protests. He was released for only a year and a half before authorities arrested him once again.
The undersigned human rights organizations reiterate their demand for Mohamed Adel’s immediate and unconditional release and the cessation of violations against individuals exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to express their opinions. They emphasize that Adel’s continued detention not only violates his rights but also serves as additional evidence of the continued erosion of the rule of law, personal and political vendettas against activists, regardless of their activities, which have been vilified for over a decade. These organizations call on the Egyptian authorities to halt acts of repression and political persecution against activists and political dissidents in Egypt, including recent actions against the publisher and dissident Hesham Kassem, and to uphold the principles of human rights and the rule of law.
The signatory organizations include a diverse range of both international and Egyptian entities, such as the Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR), the El-Nadeem Center, the Association of the Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), the Committee for Justice (CFJ), Human Rights Watch (HRW), EgyptWide for Human Rights, the Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF), Humena for Human Rights and Civic Engagement, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), CIVICUS, the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies, FairSquare, the Refugees Platform in Egypt, Amnesty International, MENA Rights Group, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), the Freedom Initiative, Democracy For The Arab World Now (DAWN), the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), and the Women for Justice Foundation.
An Egyptian court had issued a 4-year prison sentence for Mohamed Adel in case number 2981 of 2023, which dates back to 2018. In this case, Adel faces charges of “spreading false news inside and outside the country.” A lawyer from Adel’s defense team stated that the “false news” mentioned in the charges consisted of criticisms of the International Monetary Fund’s policies and Egypt’s borrowing, as well as the death penalty.
Since his detention in June 2018, Adel has faced similar charges in three cases without being referred to trial or confronted with any concrete evidence against him, all while enduring nearly five years of pretrial detention in adverse conditions.
Born on August 8, 1988, Adel is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, which called for a general strike in Egypt in 2008. He served as the official spokesperson for the movement during the era of the late President Hosni Mubarak. Additionally, he has been active with the Egyptian movement for change known as “Kefaya” since 2005, one of the prominent opposition movements preceding the January 25, 2011 revolution.
2011.