A poet jailed in Egypt for writing a satirical song about President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the army has stopped drinking after stopping eating to demand his release, human rights activists said Thursday.
Galal al-Behairy was arrested in 2018 for "insulting President" Sisi, who came to power in 2013. He was finally sentenced the same year by a military court to three years in prison for "insulting the army".
Poor conditions of detention
Declared eligible for release in 2021, he was however immediately placed in preventive detention, legally limited to two years, this time for "terrorism" and "false information", says the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), charges generally held against opponents.
To protest his detention, Galal al-Behairy began a "hunger strike on March 5" and will "stop drinking" on Thursday, said Mahienour al-Masry, a lawyer who defends many opponents. He also took the decision to "protest his poor detention conditions," according to the ECRF. The poet is imprisoned in Badr, a prison located 50 km east of Cairo and presented by the authorities as a "model" penitentiary.
In a letter written there, Galal al-Behairy said he was in a cell "without pen or paper, with light at all times, and visits of only 20 minutes", reports the NGO. "I will continue my strike until I regain my freedom," he said.
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In 2020, Chadi Habash, the director of the music video for the song written by Galal al-Behairy, died in prison at the age of 24 while in pre-trial detention. Human rights activists had denounced "grey areas" in the circumstances of his death. Another political detainee made headlines by refusing to drink during COP27 in Egypt at the end of 2022. According to his relatives, Alaa Abdel Fattah had ingested only 100 calories a day for seven months before stopping drinking for ten days. He had finally started eating again without having obtained his release.
Egypt has 60,000 political prisoners, according to NGOs. The authorities recently said they had launched a "national dialogue" with the opposition, but human rights activists denounced it as a publicity operation.