CAIRO: The Egyptian government's referral of Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad to the Abbaseyya Mental Hospitral is “a dangerous and unacceptable affair,” according to a statement from Basma Abdel Aziz, Director of Media Department of Egypt's General Secretariat of Mental Health. Nabil, who has been on a prison hunger strike since August 23, was referred to the Abbaseyya Mental Hospital by Egyptian authorities. Basma Abdel Aziz condemned the recent move regarding Nabil's case, stating, “the previous regime used to accuse mentally healthy individuals of being mentally disturbed and accuse them of crimes of conscience despite professional reports stating their sanity.” “The incarceration of an individual whose charge is having a different view of the situation in the country is morally and professionally unacceptable. Sanad is kept in one ward with others accused of criminal charges, a matter that is involves terrorizing and threat,” the statement continued. It went on to condemn the politicization of mental hospital spaces to isolate and ridicule political opponents. Nabil was sentenced to a three-year jail term for insulting the Egyptian military on his blog “Son of Ra,” in a blog post published last March entitled, “The people and the military were never one hand.” 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. Human rights groups and activists have called for the immediate release of the blogger, stating that he is a prisoner of conscience, unduly held. BM
