EgyWatch – June 18, 2019

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi died on Monday during a court hearing for charges that he colluded with the Palestinian Hamas movement.

Many activists accused the media, along with international actors, of causing the death of Egypt’s first elected civilian president.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, said Morsi’s death was “terrible but entirely predictable,” adding that “the government has failed to allow him access to medical care and has obstructed family visits.”

Many Egyptian activists cited the report, prepared by an independent human rights commission composed of British MPs and lawyers and published on March 28, 2018, on the health status of the former president.

The report warned that if Morsi’s treatment in prison did not improve quickly he could face a premature death due to the Egyptian authorities’ refusal to provide medical treatment. He suffers from diabetes and kidney failure.

President Mohamed Morsi was held incommunicado for three years in Mazra’a Prison near Tora Prison. According to his family, they were only able to visit him twice, the first time in Burj al-Arab Prison on November 6, 2013, and the second on June 4, 2017 in Mazra’a Prison.

Morsi died on Monday during his trial and his body was transferred to hospital.