Egypt’s Bread and Freedom Party cofounder spends two years in pretrial detention

Egyptian political activist Mohamed Walid has completed two years in pretrial detention after being arrested in September 2019 at Cairo Airport.

Walid was on his way to Saudi Arabia, where he worked, after returning from a holiday in Egypt after being forcibly disappeared during which time he was tortured.

According to another party cofounder, Elham Aidaros, on the day he went missing, Walid had his passport stamped and was inside the airport.

Contact between Walid and his family cut out less than an hour before his flight departed. The flight arrived in Saudi but Walid was not on it.

In August the following year a criminal court ruled that Walid should be released but the decision was not implemented and he was forcibly disappeared again and new charges were brought against him.

READ: Egypt’s chief justice warns rights advocates to ‘stay quiet’

Walid has almost lost his eyesight whilst in prison. He eventually managed to get surgery on his eyes but has found it hard to recover with the lack of aftercare available and the unhygienic conditions, according to a Facebook post by the Bread and Freedom Party.

Walid is a founding member of the Bread and Freedom Party, which was formed out of former members of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party who quit over allegations the party aligned with the military during the country’s transitional period.

The party has called on Egyptian authorities to reveal where Walid is and are holding the Interior Ministry responsible for his safety.

There are roughly 65,000 political prisoners in Egypt who are systematically tortured, denied medical care and suffer with their mental health because of the adverse conditions they are kept in.

There has been a rise in the number of suicides, or suicide attempts, over the past several months inside prisons, as despair increases.