Egypt: Former presidential candidate 'wrote his last will' from jail as his health deteriorates
The family of the former Egyptian presidential candidate and leader of the Strong Egypt party, Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, has warned that he is going through severe medical conditions in jail and has written his final will in his latest letter to them.
Aboul-Fotouh is a well-known political reformist and former leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group.
Following the 2011 revolution, he quit the Brotherhood and established the Strong Egypt (Masr el-Qawiya) party. He ran for president in 2012 but lost to Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood's candidate. Morsi was overthrown in a military coup one year later by his defence minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is now president.
After Sisi's coup, the government staged a crackdown on both the secular and Islamist political opposition, including Aboul-Fotouh's party, which was accused of being an arm of the Brotherhood, despite its denial of such allegations.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
In March, Aboul-Fotouh was sentenced to 15 years in prison over his criticism of the Sisi government and political activism.
Killing 'in cold blood'
Aboul-Fotouh, 71, was arrested in 2018 after he joined a call to boycott that year's presidential election, which Sisi won by a landslide. He was charged with spreading false news to harm national interests.
Ahmed Aboul-Fotouh, his son, wrote on Facebook that his father suffers from frequent heart attacks and that Egyptian authorities refused a request from his lawyer to transfer him to a hospital at the expense of his family.
He accused people "who do not know the meaning of honour" of wanting to take revenge on his father and "kill him in cold blood".
In July, Aboul-Fotouh had a heart attack in his prison cell in al-Mazraa jail in Tora complex, the fourth in the last two months. His family said that they had informed top authorities in the country, including the president, requesting urgent health care to maintain his life.
The former presidential candidate is one of at least 60,000 political prisoners estimated to have been jailed since Sisi came to power nine years ago.
Several Egyptian figures appealed to Sisi in a letter in August to release Aboul-Fotouh, amongst them Hamdeen Sabahi, a former presidential candidate.
Some Egyptian activists have criticised the government for letting Aboul-Fotouh's health deteriorate to this level. Gamal Sultan, a journalist and the editor-in-chief of Al-Masryoun newspaper, tweeted that Egypt's public prosecutor, Hamada el-Sawy, is complicit in the case.
"There is a murder now taking place inside Egyptian prisons against a party leader and a former, and possibly later, presidential candidate, and the Egyptian public prosecutor is involved in the crime," Sultan tweeted, referring to Aboul-Fotouh and Sawy.
Sultan also tweeted the names of figures who were charged and accused by Egyptian courts in financial and criminal cases and later pardoned by the Egyptian government and released from jail. He called for an immediate release of Aboul-Fotouh.
Since his arrest, Aboul-Fotouh has suffered chronic health issues and has long complained of medical negligence, a practice widely documented in Egyptian prisons by human rights groups.
In April, his family said he was subjected to a "barbaric" assault by guards in his cell at the notorious Tora prison complex.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
