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Egypt: court won’t end former presidential candidate’s solitary confinement

April 26, 2022 at 1:45 pm

Egypt’s former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh in the Swiss resort of Davos, on January 27, 2012 [VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/GettyImages]

Egypt’s Administrative Court has rejected a request by former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh to end his solitary confinement, it was reported on Monday. This is the second time that the court has rejected such a request from Aboul Fotouh, who is the head of the Strong Egypt Party.

His petition to end his solitary confinement included a request to enable him enjoy his “legal and constitutional rights, including reading newspapers, reading books, physical exercise, performing Friday prayer at the prison mosque, speaking on the telephone, sending and receiving letters, having physiotherapy and having a small fridge to preserve his medicines.”

All of Aboul Fotouh’s requests relate to rights guaranteed by the laws and regulations governing prisons in Egypt. Despite the legal maximum period that a prisoner can be held in solitary being eight months in total, he has spent more than two years in solitary confinement.

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in 2018, but his interrogation only started in February 2020.

READ: Egypt to release new round of prisoners today as 60,000 remain behind bars