The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the punitive prosecution of cassation lawyer, and former member of the National Council for Human Rights Hoda Abdel Moneim, 65, who was referred to trial by the State Security Prosecution on December 10th  in connection with Case No. 800 of 2019 (Supreme State Security). Thus, the prosecution charged Hoda in three cases with the same charges without facing her with a single serious piece of evidence throughout six years of arbitrary detention.

Although Case No. 800 of 2019 has been open for more than five years, the State Security Prosecution interrogated Abdel Moneim for the first time in connection with this case on November 18th 2024. She was charged again with "joining and financing a terrorist group", without being faced with evidence or witnesses. This is the third time the lawyer has been charged with joining and financing a terrorist group. The first was on October 31st 2018, when she was arrested from her home and interrogated in connection with Case No. 1552 of 2018, known in local media as the “Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms”. She remained in pretrial detention for more than three years in violation of law. Later, the Emergency State Security Court issued an unappealable verdict against her, sentencing her to five years in prison on charges of "joining a terrorist group", while acquitting her of the charge of financing it.

Abdel Moneim was supposed to be released on October 31 st of 2023, after serving the whole jail term. However, she was “recycled” and referred to the State Security Prosecution, which interrogated her in connection with Case No. 730 of 2020, on the same charges for which she was tried before. Abdel Moneim’s detention has been renewed for more than a year. The last detention renewal hearing was held on December 9th via video conference, during which she complained of dizziness and fainting due to the narrowing of a brain artery. However, the Second Circuit (Terrorism) of the Cairo Criminal Court in Badr, headed by Judge Wagdy Abdel Moneim, decided to continue her detention despite the lack of legal justification. Abdel Moneim has a well-known fixed place of residence, and there is no fear that an elderly and sick woman like her will harm the interest of the investigation or threaten public security.

On December 9th, as Abdel Moneim was listing her deteriorating health issues to the judge and being subjected to medical negligence, the Ministry of Interior announced that a delegation from the National Council for Women (NCW) visited the 10th of Ramadan Prison, where Abdel Moneim is held. The NCW chief Amal Mahmoud praised the conditions at the prison as "a humanitarian facility in every sense of the word". Apparently, none of the members of the NCW's delegation met Abdel Moneim, who suffered extremely harsh detention conditions over the past six years, during most of which she was denied access to her family and all visits, in violation of the Prisons Organization Law. Moreover, Abdel Moneim has suffered from medical negligence since her arrest in 2018, as she has a vesicoureteral reflux in the right kidney and a failure in the left one. She was denied getting a required heart scan over the past three years, despite all the requests and complaints submitted by her lawyer and family.

EIPR calls for the immediate release of Abdel Moneim, who has been detained for more than six years on political charges. It calls on Public Prosecutor Mohamed Shawky to put an end to the crime of "recycling" State Security defendants into successive, similar and endless cases. EIPR also calls on the Ministry of Interior to enforce the law and enable Abdel Moneim to receive medical treatment, which is a right guaranteed by the constitution and the law. It further calls on the NCW to pay a real independent visit to the 10th of Ramadan Prison, meet inmates there, discuss their conditions, and listen to their complaints and demands.