Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh spent 8 years in solitary confinement

Prominent Egyptian politician and head of the Strong Egypt Party, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh (74), on Friday begins his eighth year in solitary confinement since his arrest in 2018.

On 14 February, 2018, Egyptian National Security forces stormed his home after his return from a trip to the British capital, London.

Since then, he has been in solitary confinement, moving between the maximum-security Scorpion ward in Tora Prison and the Badr Rehabilitation and Correction Centre.

The Egyptian Network for Human Rights shared in a statement: “Despite his advanced age and deteriorating health, including multiple heart attacks and other health setbacks, he has been denied the necessary medical care, constituting a severe violation of constitutional, legal, and human rights standards. Prolonged solitary confinement is recognised as a form of psychological torture and cruel, inhuman treatment under international prisoner rights standards.”

“Despite his lawyer’s efforts to end this arbitrary measure through legal action, on 23 April, 2022, after two years of litigation, the Administrative Court dismissed the lawsuit seeking to end Dr Aboul Fotouh’s solitary confinement. This decision contradicts Egyptian law, specifically Article 43 of the Prisons Regulation Law No. 396 of 1956, which stipulates that the maximum duration for solitary confinement is 30 days and up to six months for placing a convict in a high-security cell. Nevertheless, Dr Aboul Fotouh has been in solitary confinement for seven years, in blatant violation of both Egyptian law and international standards,” it added.

Paragraphs five and six of Article 43 of the Prisons Regulation Law No. 396 of 1956 stipulate that the maximum period of solitary confinement is 30 days, and the maximum period of placing the convict in a special high-security room is six months.

The court also rejected the second request in the lawsuit, which included allowing him to exercise his basic rights inside the prison, which are guaranteed by the Prisons Law and its internal regulations, including entering the prison library, subscribing to newspapers, bringing in books, exercising in the sun, performing Friday prayers in the prison mosque, making phone calls, exercising the right to correspondence, receiving physical therapy and bringing in a small refrigerator at his own expense to store medicine and treatments.

The organisation stated: “The court’s refusal indicates a deliberate intent by the authorities to keep Dr Aboul Fotouh in complete isolation, despite surpassing the legal pretrial detention period and his critical health condition, suggesting that his detention is a purely political decision rather than a legal measure.”

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