Egypt journalist’s life in danger after torture

The life of political prisoner and journalist Solafa Magdy is in danger as her health continues to deteriorate.

Magdy was arrested in November along with her husband Hossam Al-Sayyad and a third journalist, Mohamed Salah, from a café in Cairo, and accused of disseminating false news and joining a banned group.

They are friends of the detained activist Israa Abdelfattah, who was kidnapped by security forces from a street in Cairo in October and then tortured and beaten in custody.

Their arrest came 48 hours after a raid on Mada Masr, Egypt’s last independent media outlet, which ignited a wave of international condemnation.

According to the Twitter account Freedom, which publishes news about political prisoners in Egypt, Solafa suffers from a high platelet count and has been tortured in custody.

As a result, she is suffering from severe back and knee pain.

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On addition to this, on the first day of Solafa’s arrest she was injected with a drug because she had a fever, but she was allergic to it and couldn’t move for several days.

She decided to stop treatment because she was afraid of contracting an infection in the prison hospital, which does not follow hygiene procedures correctly.

Solafa and her husband’s detention was renewed last week, without investigation into their case. Authorities did not allow defence lawyers to attend the session.

Hossam is being held in Tora Prison.

In December last year Solafa went on hunger strike along with ten other women in Al-Qanater women’s prison to protest their ill treatment and inhumane detention conditions.

Prisoners are kept in overcrowded, unhygienic cells and are not given enough food to eat. Over the winter Egypt’s prison authorities have arbitrarily prohibited the entry of blankets and heavy clothing.

Late last year the Sisi regime arrested some 4,000 people over the course of several weeks after protests erupted across the country in September calling for him to step down as president.

Media workers have been specifically targeted as the grip on free speech tightens. Egypt is the third worst imprisoner of journalists worldwide.