The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Sharqawi's ordeal continues...

Youth for Change activist, Mohamed el-Sharqawi sent a new letter from Mahkoum Tora Prison, cell no. 1-B, dated 12 June, complaining of medical negligence. The State Security Prosecutor had decided earlier last week to allow him treatment at El-Manyal University Hospital outside prison. Apparently this all turned out to be a farce. Here are excerpts from Sharqawi's letter:

The State Security prosecutor, Mohamed Faisal, who’s a #$%&^%, was trying to suck up to us and please us in any way last time we were referred to him—and I need to emphasize that we refused, and still refuse, to be interrogated by him, and we are requesting a magistrate instead. He told me he will refer me to El-Manyal University Hospital. But as soon as I went back to prison, I found out he had referred me instead to the prison hospital in Liman Tora.

At any rate, the prison did not even get me a bones medical specialist, as the prosecutor ordered. Just, every two days, a doctor passes by, and writes a medical report on my condition. The last person who came and wrote a report about my medical condition was today, Monday. He discovered I had a fracture in my seventh rib, and my left hand wrist, that needs a surgery and the insertion of metal plates. And I took a paper from him saying that, but he refused to mention everything in his official medical report....

Sharqawi's lawyers have also issued a statement "calling upon local and international civil society to exert pressures on the Egyptian government in order to rescue Al-Sharqawi's life which is in continuously increasing danger."