Cairo: 17 June 2020

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has filed a report to the Public Prosecutor urging him to use his legally established authority to release activist Mohamed Adel; as he reached today, June 17, the two-year legal limit for remand detention- since his arrest on 18 June 2108- in accordance with Article 143 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which states that pre-trial detention cannot exceed a period of two years.

ANHRI said that its report to the Public Prosecutor, Chancellor Hamada El-Sawy, came against the backdrop of Mohamed Abdel spending the two-year maximum limit for pretrial detention, especially that there hasn’t been any progress in the judicial investigation over which the activist is being detained, nor that he received an order to be brought to trial before his natural judge pending the Case No. 5606 of 2018. In addition to that, Mohamed Abdel’s detention renewal sessions is being conducted only on paper without bringing him from his jail to the courthouse or appearing before the competent prosecutions or judge, which usually decide to extend his detnetion despite the absence of all reasons and justifications prescribed for the pretrial detention orders.

Upon a communiqué filed by a citizen, the security forces arrested Mohamed Adel on 18 June 2018 while he was leaving Aga Police Station in Mansoura governorate, where he was serving his precautionary measures issued against him in another case. Adel is charged with joining a terrorist group and spreading false news.

ANHRI calls on the Public Prosecutor to respond to its request to release Mohamed Adel in implementation of the procedural legitimacy and the rule of the law.