Mohamed Adel, the former spokesperson for Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement, is suffering “serious psychological deterioration” inside 10th of Ramadan Prison 4, his wife has warned. Speaking after her latest visit, she said Adel vowed to begin an open‑ended hunger strike and threatened to take his own life, convinced he “will remain imprisoned until he dies.”
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Rofeida Hamdy wrote that what she was sharing “is not just a post, but a cry for help,” urging anyone able to intervene to carry her message to “decision-makers” to end what she described as a tragedy that has continued for more than 12 years. She warned that “a human calamity is now both possible and very close. Please, enough.”
Hamdy said she visited her husband on Monday, July 6, and was shocked by the deterioration in his mental state. He told her he planned to begin an open-ended hunger strike “so he can die quickly because he believes he’ll stay in prison until he dies.”
Hamdy said she tried to dissuade her husband, but he replied: “I’m going to kill myself.” It was the first time she had ever heard him speak that way, which she described as “true horror.” She added that Adel “follows through once he makes a decision,” but said she managed, with great difficulty, to persuade him to delay the hunger strike for a while.
Hamdy attributed her husband’s deteriorating condition to his continued imprisonment for more than 12 years. She said he had been denied his right to daily exercise since Jan. 10 following an assault she says he was subjected to inside the prison. As a result, she said, he has not left his cell for six months except for the two family visits permitted each month.
She also said Adel has been denied access to specialist doctors despite suffering from bone, chest, and digestive health problems, and has also been prevented from taking postgraduate examinations. “Mohamed Adel has been denied his right to life,” she said.
In early December 2025, Adel launched a hunger strike over what Hamdy said at the time were threats and abuse he faced inside prison.
In mid-February, Hamdy appealed to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to issue a presidential pardon for her husband, saying his continued imprisonment had deprived them of the chance to start a family for more than a decade. In September 2023, she launched a petition addressed to El-Sisi urging him to pardon Adel.
In May 2024, 80 Egyptian and international human rights organizations called for Adel’s immediate release, saying he was being deprived of adequate food at Gamasa prison, harming his health.
Despite those appeals and repeated calls for his release, neither the presidency nor the Public Prosecution has responded.
Adel was first arrested on Dec. 19, 2013, and accused of protesting without a permit outside the Abdeen Court in case No. 9593 of 2013 (Abdeen Misdemeanors). He was sentenced to three years, which he served, followed by an equal period under police probation.
Authorities detained him again in June 2018 at the Aga Police Station in Dakahliya while he was serving probation. He remained in pretrial detention until prosecutors charged him with spreading false news in case No. 2981 of 2023. He was sentenced to four years on Sept. 2, 2023.
In previous comments to Al Manassa, Hamdy said Adel’s pretrial detention was not counted toward his sentence, meaning it should have ended in January 2025. She said authorities instead calculated the term from the date of the verdict.
