The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) reiterates its condemnation of the punitive prosecution of lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim (65), who was referred by the Supreme State Security Prosecution on trial in connection with Case No. 730 of 2020, on Dec 29th. This is the third case in which the human rights lawyer and former member of the National Council for Human Rights has been brought to trial since her detention in October 2018, and the second case she has been referred to trial in less than a month.

For six years and two months, Abdel Moneim has faced the same charges, namely joining and funding a banned group, without a single serious piece of evidence. The Emergency Supreme State Security Court had previously issued a verdict – which cannot be appealed under the Emergency Law – acquitting her of the funding charge, in addition to sentencing her to five years in prison on charge of joining a banned group in Case No. 1552 of 2018, known in local media as the "Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms case".

On the day Abdel Moneim was supposed to be released after serving her full jail term, the Supreme State Security Prosecution decided to “recycle” her for the first time on October 31st 2023 into Case No. 730 of 2020. In November 2024, the prosecution “recycled” her for the second time into a third case, No. 800 of 2019, in which she was referred to trial on 11 December, less than a month after interrogating her in the previous case. Finally, the State Security Prosecution referred her to trial in Case No. 730 of 2020, into which she was previously recycled. This means that the Egyptian judiciary will – unprecedentedly – try the same person on the same charges twice at the same time.

When referring cases to court, the Supreme State Security Prosecution ignored Articles 454 and 455 of the Criminal Procedures Law, which stipulate that a person may not be tried for the same incident more than once. While the Community Protection Sector (formerly the Prisons Authority) continues to violate several articles of the Prisons Organization Law, the Law on the Care of Elderly Rights, as well as articles of the Egyptian constitution, Abdel Moneim continues to be deprived of her minimum rights to a decent life and access to the necessary healthcare.

Abdel Moneim has chronic deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, high blood pressure, and severe arthritis, according to medical reports. In addition, she suffered angina, a vesicoureteral reflux in the right kidney, and a failure in the left one during her detention. She has recently suffered a narrowing of an artery in the brain, which caused her to stay in bed for 12 days, during which she did not get out of her cell. This prompted her husband and lawyer, Mr. Khaled Badawy, to submit petition No. 85546 of 2024 to Public Prosecutor Mohamed Shawky, in which he detailed the health condition of his wife and client, and requested her release due to the lack of justifications for her pretrial detention, taking into account her poor health condition.

EIPR calls for the immediate release of Abdel Moneim, who has been detained for more than six years on political charges, and backs her husband’s call on the Public Prosecutor to release her to save her life. It also calls on the Public Prosecutor to address the crime of “recycling” defendants into similar and endless consecutive cases, out of respect for what remains of the Egyptian justice system.