The April 6 Youth Movement said Saturday its founder, Ahmed Maher, who is in jail for breaking protest laws, started a hunger strike last Tuesday over "inhumane" treatment in prison.
In a statement, the group accused the National Council for Human Rights of "ignoring" requests for council members to visit activists Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel and Ahmed Doma and other activists in various prisons to check on their conditions.
But NCHR member George Ishaq denied receiving any complaints from the group or its detained members.
“The movement had earlier asked the council to visit its prisoners, and a delegation from the council did pay a visit a month ago, meeting Maher, Douma and Adel,” Ishaq said, adding that the trio made no complaints.
Meanwhile, Maher’s brother, Mostafa, said prison authorities denied the three activists visits, adding that officials at Wadi al-Natroun Prison are mistreating five other activists with the “brutalist kinds of torture.”
Early April, an appeals court upheld a verdict sentencing Maher, Adel and Doma to three years over charges of unlicensed protesting and policemen assault late 2013. The trio was among the most outstanding activist figures who had led protests against the ruling regimes since 2011.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
