Jailed opposition leader threatens new hunger strike

CAIRO: The jailed leader of the opposition El-Ghad (Tomorrow) party will go on a hunger strike if the prosecution does not improve the conditions of his detention, his wife and spokeswoman told AFP Sunday. Ayman Nour will go on hunger strike on Wednesday if the prosecution does not meet his demands, Gamila Ismail said after visiting her husband in the Cairo prison hospital where he is detained. Nour, who mounted an aggressive challenge to President Hosni Mubarak in the Sept. 2005 presidential election, was slapped on Dec. 5 with a five-year prison sentence on charges of forgery, which he claimed were fabricated. The 41-year-old lawyer complained last week that his books were confiscated by the prison authorities and that he was being prevented from writing articles for his El-Ghad party s mouthpiece weekly. Gamila explained that Nour had been preparing an article criticizing what he said was a strategy by the government to groom Gamal Mubarak for the presidency. She also said Nour, who suffers from heart problems and diabetes, was not given adequate medical treatment. Nour had already gone on a hunger strike in December to protest the fact that he was jailed even before the verdict in his forgery trial was handed down. AFP