Social media campaign to release Alaa Abdel Fattah after his health deterioration

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Monday, a social media campaign to release Alaa Abdel Fattah trended in Egypt after thousands of microblogs raised the demand on top of the hunger strike Abdel Fattah declared weeks ago. Laila Soueif, the mother of Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, said she fears she will never see her son alive again. He has been on a hunger strike for nearly six weeks, protesting his prison conditions. She added that an officer warned her, during a visit to her son in his prison in Cairo, that he might prevent her from revisiting him after she complained of violations.

Several Egyptian mothers had petitioned the National Council for Human Rights to make all possible efforts to transfer political activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah from his prison cell to a prison hospital in light of the harmful health conditions after his hunger strike exceeded its fortieth day.

Abdel-Fattah’s sister, Mona, had talked about his poor health and the prison administration’s refusal to register his hunger strike, in addition to the continued prevention of some rights guaranteed to him by law, such as the right to exercise, read books and newspapers and listen to the radio. At the beginning of last April, Abdel-Fattah announced the start of a hunger strike. A member of the Presidential Pardon Committee, Kamal Abu Aita, announced that the committee had submitted lists of hundreds of human rights activists, lawyers and journalists to demand their release. The lists included the name of Abdel-Fattah.