Egypt hunger strikes gain momentum

[Jefferson23]

A nationwide hunger strike is gaining support in Egypt against the country's controversial Protest Law.

Al Jazeera Last updated: 14 Sep 2014

Cairo, Egypt - As Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi heads to New York next week for the UN General Assembly, he leaves behind a country with a growing movement of hunger strikers calling for the release of detainees jailed under a controversial Protest Law.

Several political parties and journalists began a symbolic nationwide hunger strike on Saturday to demand the release of detainees held for violating a law enacted last year that has been criticised by both domestic and international human rights groups, as well as prominent political figures, as curtailing peoples' right to protest.

Laila Soueif, an assistant professor of mathematics at Cairo University, whose two children, Sanaa and Alaa, are in jail for demonstrating against the law, has been on hunger strike with her only child that remains out of jail, Mona Seif, since September 4.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/egypt-hunger-strikes-gain-momentum-2014913154059914388.html