Ibrahim Al-Yamany, a 27-year-old Al-Azhar University medicine graduate, has been on hunger-strike for approximately a year, according to ‘Freedom for the Brave’, a popular initiative set up to provide support for detainees.
Al-Yamany has been detained since 17 August 2013 after security forces stormed Al-Fateh mosque and arrested all those inside, including Al-Yamany and his father, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Al-Yamany’s case includes 498 more people.
They are facing charges of murder, attempted murder, destruction of property and partaking in “violent acts” in the Ramses Square demonstrations that took place on 16 and 17 August, 2013.
On 12 August 2014, the North Cairo Court, headed by Judge Mahmoud Rasheedy, withdrew from the ‘Fateh mosque’ case trial which led to delays in the case.Furthermore, on 29 March, the trial was postponed to 26 April for the court to hear eye-witness accounts. Al-Yamany is currently held in Wadi El-Natrun prison.
Last January, he was moved to a “disciplinary unit despite his deteriorating health conditions”, the ‘Freedom for the Brave’ campaign said.
His brother, Abed Al-Yamany, further stated that Al-Yamany was not taken to a hospital before he was moved to solitary confinement.
The prison administration had been “putting pressure” on the hunger-striker as officials approached him several times asking him to end the strike, his brother added.
Al-Yamany’s family said they hold the prison administration responsible for Al-Yamany’s deteriorating health conditions.
Tens of detainees are currently on hunger strike in protest of detention without, or under false charges. Mohamed Soltan, detained since 26 August 2013, has held the longest hunger strike in the history of Egyptian detention.
His sister, Hanaa Soltan, previously told Daily News Egypt that hunger strikes seem to have taken Egyptian authorities by surprise. “They have no protocols for dealing with this method of resistance”, which, she says, has been more popular among Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
