Court keeps Palestine banner activists in detention past 30 months
A Cairo court ordered 45 more days of pretrial detention on Sunday for labor leader Shady Mohamed and five co-defendants, pushing their imprisonment past 30 months in violation of legal limits, their defense team told Al Manassa.
The Second Terrorism Circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court, convening at the Badr Security Complex, issued the extension in Case No. 1644 of 2024 Supreme State Security Prosecution, known as the “Palestine banner” case, according to Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) lawyers Islam Salama and Hazem Salah.
The ruling directly tests whether courts will obey legal detention limits ahead of an overhaul of the country’s penal code. Lawyer Hazem Salah warned that keeping the defendants in jail past Egypt’s existing 24-month legal cap sets an early test for the new Criminal Procedures Law, which cuts the maximum pretrial detention period to 18 months when it takes effect on Oct. 1.
Salah told Al Manassa that following the new law requires authorities to “release Shady, his companions, and everyone who has exceeded the pretrial detention limit,” calling the court’s decision a measure of the state’s willingness to stick to statutory limits.
During Sunday’s hearing, the six defendants appeared through screens rather than in open court. Mohamed and co-defendant Youssef Yasser Farouk attended via videolink from Borg El Arab Prison, while the other four defendants joined remotely from 10th of Ramadan 6 Prison. Defense attorney Islam Salama formally requested their release, pointing out that they have exceeded legal custody limits without evidence justifying their continued detention.
Salama also presented proof to the court that Borg El Arab Prison officials have repeatedly refused to permit an MRI scan for Mohamed, despite multiple official requests submitted to prison management and the Supreme State Security Prosecution.
Mohamed’s health is deteriorating due to a severe left shoulder injury sustained while in detention that has left him unable to move his arm, his defense team and his wife told Al Manassa in previous statements. Prison physicians and fellow inmate doctors suspect a torn tendon, and his wife accused prison authorities of deliberate medical stalling.
The medical dispute follows months of prison unrest over Mohamed’s custody conditions. Mohamed began a full hunger strike on Jan. 29, 2025, protesting his transfer from 10th of Ramadan 6 Prison to Borg El Arab Prison and the confiscation of his personal belongings.
He ended the strike after more than four weeks when his treatment improved following a widespread solidarity campaign, according to statements his wife made to Al Manassa at the time.
Authorities have held the six men since late April 2024 solely for peaceful expressions of Palestinian solidarity amid the Israeli military assault on Gaza. Security forces arrested the five young men from their homes in Alexandria on April 28, 2024, and seized Mohamed outside his home the following day.
All six were brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution at the end of April after hanging a solidarity banner over a bridge in Alexandria.
Mohamed’s current imprisonment continues years of state retaliation against his shop-floor organizing. Shady Mohamed was a leader in the independent union of workers at Linen Group for furnishings and textiles in the Amreya Free Zone, before he was arbitrarily dismissed from the company in 2019 in connection with his participation in labor protests demanding improved wages.
State security previously jailed him in an earlier union crackdown. Security forces arrested him on Oct. 3, 2022, from inside a company bus at the textiles firm, and brought him before the Dekheila Prosecution in Alexandria, which ordered his pretrial detention in Case No. 10233 of 2022 on charges of “joining a terrorist group and publishing false news.” He was held at Borg El Arab Prison before the attorney general for West Alexandria ordered his release on Oct. 24, 2022.