Anti-Coup Detainees in Junta Jails Start January 14 and 15 Hunger Strike

Detainees opposed to the military coup, in all prisons and detention centers across Egypt, announced an escalation in their defiance with a hunger strike on January 14 and 15. They protest systematic violations against them, and the complicity of the public prosecutor with the prison service in refusing to investigate any of the flagrant violations. They also protest against the sham referendum on the junta’s charter.

The Association of Families of Detainees in Coup Prisons, in its first founding statement, praised the partial hunger strike escalation in coup prisons and detention centres against the referendum as the right message and a cry of anger against the illegitimate constitution that belongs in a world of fantasy, daydreams and nightmares, completely removed from reality in the street.

The Association holds coup authorities responsible for the lives of all detainees, stressing that leaving them without investigation into the causes of their hunger strike indicates participation by the prosecution service in abuses against helpless detainees.

The Association stresses that the hunger strike is a legitimate right of all detainees, because of the violations practiced against them in places of detention, pointing that there are cases of systematic torture against them, and even murder outside the framework of the law, as the junta deliberately fails to provide them with any medicines or medical care.

The Association vows to move forward in peaceful struggle until detainees gain all their rights and their freedom, and until all those who committed crimes against them are held to task.