Jailed blogger Abdel-Monem went on open hunger strike

Jailed blogger Abdel-Monem Mahmoud along with 23 other jailed students from the Institute of Agricultural Engineering threatened to begin a hunger strike on Tuesday May 8 in protest of their harsh detention conditions ^[1]. According to a hunger strike statement sent today ^[2], the detainees claimed that they were subject to sexual harassment by prisoners of common law with whom they're sharing the space.
Lawyer Islam Lotfi, a member of Abd Al-Moneim's defense panel said that the “Al Mahkom” prison where Monem ^[3] is kept “is designated for the most vicious criminals” and that “several cases of TB and HIV have been detected among prisoners.”