The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) welcomes the ruling by the Court of Administrative Justice ruling to grant  an imprisoned activist Mohamed Adel, former spokesperson for the April 6 Youth Movement,the right to take his  postgraduate exams for the current academic year 2025-2026. 

The ruling, issued on 11 September,is a step towards enabling prisoners to continue their postgraduate education, EIPR said

Last December, activist Mohamed Adel went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal refusal by prison authorities to allow  him to take his exams during the previous academic year (2024-2025). The prison administration responded by barring Adel's wife from visitation at Gamasa Prison in Dakahlia Governorate, then transferring him to 10th of Ramadan Prison (4) in Sharqia in retaliation. 

EIPR lawyers had filed complaints to the Minister of Interior, the Assistant Minister for the Community Protection Sector, and the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Mansoura University, to demand an investigation into Adel's deprivation of his postgraduate education and the reasons for his hunger strike. The complaints  remain “under investigation”.

EIPR's appeal was based on the fact that the right to education, according to Article 19 of the Constitution, is not a privilege that the state can grant or deny at its will, determining who may enjoy it or be prevented from it. Instead, the Constitution stipulates it as a right for any citizen who seeks it and a duty for the state to provide. It is an inalienable right that cannot be undermined or restricted in a way that obstructs its essence. Its provision is considered a duty inseparable from the right itself and a gateway to a decent life based on the assurance of a better future. The appeal also relied on Article 31 of the "Law Regulating Correctional and Community Rehabilitation Centers," which directs prison administrations to encourage inmates to read and learn and to facilitate studying for those who wish to continue their education.

Adel's life has been on hold for more than 11 years. His freedom has been restricted, either through pretrial detention, by being subjected to police surveillance for 12 hours a day for a period of a year and a half, or through unjust sentences issued against him on political charges. In the last six years, Adel has faced compounded abuse, ranging from prolonged pretrial detention and being "recycled" into more than one case on similar charges. In September 2023, the Aga Appeals Court of Misdemeanors in Mansoura upheld a four-year prison sentence against him. Although Adel had already spent two years and seven months in pretrial detention in the same case in which the sentence was issued, his sentence duration was calculated only from the moment the verdict was issued without counting the years he spent in pretrial detention, which is a violation of the law. Consequently, Adel is now expected to complete his sentence in September 2027.

EIPR reiterates its rejection of Adel's continued imprisonment. He should have been released after serving more than four years in the case for which he was sentenced. It further calls on both the General Prosecutor, Counselor Mohamed Shawki, and the Minister of Interior, Major General Mahmoud Tawfiq, to intervene to enforce the law and enable Adel to take his exams and exercise his most basic constitutional rights.