Date of 1st day in prison: 18/06/2018 Released: No Restrictions: None |
Mohamed Adel is a political activist and the co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement. He also took part in the Kefaya movement in 2005. In November 2013, he was tried by a Cairo misdemeanour court on charges for unlawful protest and for allegedly assaulting police officers. He was sentenced to three years in prison, along with prominent political activists and April 6 members Ahmed Maher and Ahmed Douma. This deprivation of liberty was deemed arbitrary in an opinion adopted by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2015. Mr Adel was first released on probation in July 2017 but he was required to reside within the police station every night from 6 pm to 6 am.
On 18 June 2018, Mohamed Adel was detained during one of his holding periods and was handed a 15-day detention order by Daqahlia prosecution, pending investigations into charges of spreading false news. He was put into the Mansoura Prison and started a two-week hunger strike to protest his detention conditions. He was added to case 5606/2018, in which he was charged with joining a terrorist group in addition to spreading false news. The Mansoura Criminal Court continuously renewed his detention every 45 days.
On 21 December 2020, the Supreme State Security Prosecution included him in state security case 467/2020, in which he faces further charges of joining a terrorist group and committing a crime for financing terrorism.
On 27 January 2021, the prosecutor ordered his release in case 5606/2018 on a bail of LE10,000 after more than two years spent in pre-trial detention. However, on 8 February Mohamed Adel was investigated in a new case 4118/2018 where he faced similar charges and the Prosecutor decided to hold him in pre-trial detention for 15 days.
On 22 February Mohamed Adel started a hunger strike to protest the Prosecutor’s decision to renew his detention in the deliberate absence of his lawyers.
On 14 September 2022, the Mansoura Criminal Court decided to release Mr Adel on 5000 EGP bail. The Prosecution appealed this decision and Mr Adel’s detention was once again renewed. His detention has been consistently renewed every 45 days. When facing the judge in May 2023 at his detention’s renewal, he declared his imprisonment is political and that the decision to release him will also be political.
On 24 November 2022, the European Parliament called for Mr Adel’s immediate release in its resolution on the human rights situation in Egypt.
On 2 September 2023, Mohamed Adel was condemned to 4 years in prison for broadcasting fake news at home and abroad and in Egypt via his social media account. On 20 November 2023, a cassation appeal has been lodged against the ruling.
On 18 August 2024, activist and former spokesman for the April 6 Movement, Mohammed Adel, began a full hunger strike 20 days after he went on a partial strike and refused to receive prison food on 27 July 2024. Adel is imprisoned in Gamasa high-security prison and demands that his pretrial detention be credited toward his current four-year sentence on charges of “spreading false news,” which the court approved in September 2023.
On 30 December 2024, he was moved to the 10th of Ramadan prison following complaints by other prisoners of alleged assault against them by him.
On 26 January 2025, Mohamad Adel completed his four-year prison sentence, but the authorities refused to release him. As a result, his wife filed a case before the administrative court in Mansoura protesting the refusal of release. The case has since been referred to the Administrative Court of the First District of Cairo with no hearing scheduled yet.