An Egyptian terrorism court extended the detention of human rights lawyer Hoda Abdelmonem on Tuesday, rejecting release petitions despite her worsening health condition.
Hoda, a former member of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, attended the session in an ambulance.
The court postponed her trial in a separate but identical case, which includes charges of joining and funding a terrorist group, to July 14, her husband and attorney Khaled Badawy told Al Manassa.
Hoda, 64, faces two parallel trials on the same charges, according to a statement by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), which described the prosecution as a legal violation.
She was referred to trial in Case No. 800/2019 in December 2023, only to be referred again two weeks later in Case No. 730/2020 — the case for which the first hearing took place on Tuesday.
Her husband said the request for her release was based on her deteriorating medical condition and her legal similarity to others who have been released in the same case, including Ola Al-Qaradawi.
Hoda was arrested from her home in 2018 and held in pretrial detention for more than four years, in violation of Egyptian law. In 2023, a final ruling was issued against her in Case No. 1552/2018, known in local media as the "Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms" case. She was sentenced to five years in prison for joining a terrorist group and acquitted of financing it.
Although her sentence ended on October 31, 2023, she was not released. Instead, she was charged again with the same offenses in a new case, a practice EIPR described as "undermining the principle of finality in court judgments."
"Hoda doesn’t know the other defendants. She’s never met them and no one has named her. Despite this, she’s been listed as the primary defendant alongside 10 others," Badawy said.
He added that the court allowed only a brief greeting from afar during the hearing. "We accept this as God’s will," he said, repeating the phrase, "God is sufficient for us."
According to the statement, Hoda suffers from multiple serious health issues, including deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms, angina, total failure of the left kidney, partial failure of the right kidney, severe joint inflammation and hypertension. In December 2024, she reported experiencing vertigo and fainting, which a medical report attributed to arterial narrowing supplying the brain.
Although the public prosecution ordered her transfer to the prison hospital on November 26, 2023, the administration of 10th of Ramadan Prison has refused to comply, according to EIPR.
Badawy said he submitted a petition to the public prosecutor, registered as No. 85546/2024, detailing her health situation and demanding her release given the lack of legal justification for continued pretrial detention.
The petition has gone unanswered.
