Blogger and journalist Abdel Monem Mahmoud and 23 other detained students from the Institute of Agricultural Engineering threatened to begin a hunger strike on Tuesday May 8, to protest their inhumane imprisonment conditions and the endless cycle of intimidations by criminal prisoners which reached to the point of sexual harassment, and the disgraceful inaction by the prison administration.

In a statement released by Monem and other political detainees on Monday, they demanded their immediate release and dropping all the trumped up charges against them, accusing the prison administration of adopting a new strategy of psychological torture by allowing and encouraging criminal prisoners to intimidate and harass them.

Among the list of other inhumane imprisonment conditions the statement cited are,

According to Lotfy, several complaints have been filed to the prison administration and government officials to keep political detainees separate from criminal prisoners but nothing was done. The government seems to be adopting a new strategy by letting others do their dirty work by inflicting psychological torture on its political opponents who have been detained only for their views and opinions.

Monem was arrested on April 15 along group of students from the Institute of Agricultural Engineering and charged with belonging to an illegal organization [MB] and by reporting information that defame the regime and threaten national security.