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UPDATE 12/01/22: The Emergency State Security Court (ESSC) sentenced Mohamed Baker to four years in prison on 20 December. Proceedings by the ESSCs, which are special courts activated when there is a state of emergency, are inherently unfair and their verdicts are not subject to appeal. Please keep signing the petition and sharing on socials so we can keep building momentum around Mohamed’s case as part of Write for Rights.

Mohamed Baker is a lawyer who defends some of Egypt’s most marginalised people. He’s been locked up since 2019 in cruel conditions because the authorities don’t agree with his work promoting human rights. You can help free Mohamed by adding your name to the petition now.

Mohamed loves cats so much, he has five of them. He enjoys football, squash and motorbike riding, as well as his Nubian culture and music. But today, the human rights lawyer can only dream of what he loves. He’s in prison for defending some of the most marginalized people in Egypt.

In September 2019, Mohamed went to the prosecutor’s office to defend his friend and was himself arrested. Authorities never put him on trial. Instead, they made false, terrorism-related accusations against him and threw him in jail – all because they disagreed with his human rights work. Mohamed heads the Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms, which supports human rights and people jailed unjustly.

In jail, the authorities have subjected Mohamed to one cruelty after another. They didn’t let him see his dying father. They’ve kept him in a cramped, foul cell. And they’ve deprived him of a bed or mattress, hot water, outdoor exercise and even family photos.

Still Mohamed is hopeful. “One day… we will continue our work [to establish] free societies,” he says. You can help bring that day forward by taking action now.

Add your name to the petition calling for Mohamed’s immediate release.

Sign the Petition

  Our Petition

 

The President
Office of the President
Al Ittihadia Palace
Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt

Dear President 

As a human rights lawyer, Mohamed Baker helps the people who need him most – those who have been marginalized and jailed unfairly. Now Mohamed, himself, has been locked up unjustly. Falsely accused of terrorism, Mohamed Baker was never put on trial. Instead he was thrown in jail where prison authorities are confining him to his cell round the clock and cruelly refusing him a bed, mattress, books, newspapers – even family photos.

Defending people’s freedoms should not cost him his own. I ask that you release Mohamed Baker immediately and unconditionally, and close all investigations into the bogus accusations made against him. 

Yours sincerely