Detained award-winning lawyer Mahienour El-Massry along with six other detainees have announced that they will continue their open-ended hunger strike in Qanater women’s prison, demanding implementation of the court’s ruling that allows for visitations, the detainees said in a statement.
The statement continued that the prison’s administration has not evinced the hunger strike in a report despite the deteriorating health of Basma Refaat, one of the strikers who was prohibited from seeing her children, adding: “Is that negligence from the administration or orders from national security?”
The statement concluded by saying that the strike is ongoing until the prison administration implements the strikers’ main demand.
The detainees announced their hunger strike on 28 July in a statement in solidarity with Refaat who started her hunger-strike one week before the other detainees joined her.
El-Massry was sentenced to one year and three months in prison in 2015 over charges of breaking into Al-Raml police station and assaulting police officers in Alexandria in 2013.
In 2014, El-Massry won the Ludovic Trarieux award, an award that is given annually to a lawyer who contributes to defending human rights.
