The verb to
“strike” means to blow, to make an attack, or simply – when attached with
hunger – a deliberate refusal to eat as a means of protesting
against an oppressive authority. In short, the strikers hit the authorities with
their resistance, with only – but powerfully – empty stomachs.
It began with Mohamed Sultan, an Egyptian-American engineer who returned
home coming from the US to offer compassion and help to his ill mother –diagnosed
with cancer – and brother. On August 27, 2013, the security forces broke into
their house searching for his father; when they didn’t find him, they arrested
Mohamed instead.
No charges were directed against Sultan, which is an obvious breach of
the Constitution – issued January 2014 – that states clearly: no one is to be
detained without a clear charge. He, like thousands others, was tortured and
locked up without being able to meet a lawyer or know what exactly are his
accusations. The Constitution clearly states that “No one is to be arrested
without a warranty from the judge,” and “the detainee must be informed at once
why he/she is being taken into custody, given the right to contact family and
lawyer, and to begin the investigation in the coming 24 hours,” Article 54.
Sultan broke the recorded number of the Irish IRA prisoners’ hunger
strike in 1981: Bobby Sands (died after 66 days of strike), Kevin Lynch (died
after 71 days of strike), and Kieran Doherty (died after 73 days of strike), by
reaching 235 days without eating. He is now in a serious condition; he was
found on September, 16, 2014 in his cell bleeding throughout his mouth and
unable to stand up or walk.
Ahmad Maher, the former
general coordinator of 6th of April Youth Movement, has also started
an open hunger strike since September 15, 2014. He, Alaa Abdel-Fatah, and
Mohamed Adel face a 15-year sentence, charged with illegal protesting. Maher
declared on Wednesday, September 17, in
a press conference throughout a message sent with his brother, that he is going
on a strike, saying: “Today, we don’t have no other option but to begin the
Battle of Empty Stomachs, as we don’t have anything except our bodies to fight
with in order to wipe away injustice. What is the use of our bodies, in the
shadows of humiliation and injustice? And, what is the use of life being
isolated from it, from my family and kids? My wife and children live hopelessly
in the difficulties of another world outside the prison. What is the use of
life feeling hopeless? I’m unable to give my kids good education or a normal
life, unable to take care of my ill mother, or to share their worried and happy
moments. I have no choice, since every other legal option had been tried and
everyone else had used all ways of dialogue and advice.”
Abdel-Azim Fahmy, or Zizo Abdo, is one of the leading figures of the
Egyptian political arena, especially in Cairo. In an interview with him
conducted by the writer, the History teacher went into hunger strike as, says
he, “an act of solidarity”:
-
Why have you started hunger
striking?
-
To back the prisoners morally.
Even if I couldn’t back them, at least I feel their pain.
-
When you were imprisoned in Al-Akrab
strictly guarded jail, did you go in a hunger strike?
-
Yes, I and my friends used the
strike as a means of demanding better imprisonment conditions. We actually went
into speech and hunger strikes, until members of the prosecutor office came to
investigate. After that, things in prison started to get better, a little bit.
-
What about your strike now?
-
It’s not easy as I have
already low blood sugar and feeling exhausted. I used during the strike to read
and write, while I couldn’t talk much. After 4 days of the strike the doctor
told me to go no more in it because of a lacking blood sugar. My aim is not to
commit suicide, it’s just moral solidarity.
-
What do you want in life?
-
What I want badly here in
Egypt is the right to live normally and with dignity. I want justice not
humiliation. I don’t ask the authorities anything because those who kill the
innocents will not listen to any reason.
-
What are your dreams?
-
My dreams are very simple but
so impossible in the government’s eyes. I dream of equal distribution of
wealth, and that the ministries and government organizations would work for the
benefit of our home and not for their own personal interests. I want all the
Egyptians to smile all the time and for their dignity to be kept. I want to see
developing projects and fair and powerful will to change to the better and for
the majority of people.
-
What about your personal
dream?
To live in a free, just state, founded on impartiality and respect for
all.
In 13 September, 2014 Al-Nadeem Centre for Treating Victims of Torture
and Violence stated that there are 186 hunger strikers inside and outside
different prisons in Egypt. The 6th of April Youth Movement says
there are 41 persons joined the partial and total hunger strikes, during 17 and
18 of September, and the numbers are soaring. What is definite is that, as the
strikers say it, the revolutionaries have “reached their limits” and no other
thing can be done. Their bodies are their last weapon, their final means of
resistance; they have no other choice but to “strike” the oppressive
authorities with it, to declare their disdain for the injustice and insanity in
this miserable homeland.
P.S.: the writer is also on a partial hunger strike.
