CAIRO: Saturday October 1 marked the 38th day of Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad's prison hunger strike. The day is also his birthday. Nabil was sentenced to a three-year jail term earlier last April for criticizing Egypt's interim government, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) in a blog post. Nabil started his hunger strike on August 23. He is striking to protest the mistreatment he has received in prison and in Egypt's legal system. On Monday, the rights group Amnesty International called for Nabil's immediate release, calling him ”a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression.” Observers of Nabil's hunger strike believe that he only has days left to live. His health has deteriorated greatly, however he refuses to end his strike. Health officials claim that a human cannot live more than 40 days on a hunger strike. His family says that his weight has dropped from 130 pounds to just over 100. He has also been denied medication for a preexisting heart condition. Nabil, a Coptic Christian, holds controversial political views. As such, he has received little attention from the activist and pro-rights community in Egypt. The blogger supports Egyptian normalization with Israel, causing him to receive harsh criticism. He came under fire when he evaded military conscription in 2010 on the grounds that he is a pacifist and sympathetic to Israeli troops. “I don't want to point a weapon at a young Israeli, recruited into obligatory service, defending his state's right to exist. I think obligatory service is a form of slavery,” he wrote in a blog post then. Many have criticized Egyptian activists for neglecting Nabil's case. Nabil's verdict is set for appeal on October 4. Many other activists accused of insulting the SCAF have since received pardon. BM
