In preventive detention and on hunger strike since 26 January 2014

The undersigned organizations are calling on the Egyptian government to immediately transfer Mohamed Soltan, who has been on hunger strike for 132 days, back to the Qasr al-ainii hospital to ensure his survival. Blatantly ignoring warnings from medical professionals who examined Mohamed Soltan yesterday, prison authorities took him back to Tora Prison despite the imminent risk that he bleeds to death. In the unfortunate event that he succumbs to his condition, the undersigned organizations would hold the Egyptian government fully responsible for his death for intentionally refusing to provide him with the necessary medical care outside the prison walls.

Mohamed Soltan has been on hunger strike since 26 January only consuming sugared alternating with salted water in protest of his continual detention and ill-treatment. Doctors who examined Mohamed Soltan on 9 June noted a severe drop in all his vital signs including pulse rate and blood pressure. Medical testing also determined the presence of blood clots in his lungs, and concluded that he is suffering from poisoning due to the disproportionately high level of drugs in his bloodstream. Unless immediately treated, he is in imminent danger of bleeding to death and/or slipping in a coma.

In contravention to the law and to the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners approved by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations,  for months, the government has been ignoring repeated pleas by Mohamed Soltan's family, lawyers and human rights organizations for him to be transferred to a hospital to receive adequate medical health care . This persistent denial of medical treatment despite Mohamed Soltan's critical and rapidly deteriorating condition casts another dark shadow over the government's dismal human rights record in the treatment of prisoners.

Mohamed Soltan was arrested in late August 2013 in the wake of the dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-in in Rabaa al-Adawiya, and charged with spreading false information and funding the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in in the case commonly referred to as the “ Rabaa Operations Room”, which includes some 50 other defendants, among them senior Muslim Brotherhood figures. According to his family, he was beaten and otherwise abused on a number of occasions since his arrest amid the failure of the public prosecution to investigate allegations of torture or other ill-treatment.

The undersigned organization also condemn the continual detention and denial of necessary medical care of journalist Abdallah al-Shamy, also on hunger strike since 21 January.

Signatories:

1. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
2. El Nadeem Centre for psychological rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture
3. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
4. Egyptian Centre for Eeconomic and Socila Rights
5. Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
6. Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies
7. Nazra for Feminist Studies