Maikel Nabil Sanad

Jailed Egyptian blogger on hunger strike says 'he is ready to die' | World news | The Guardian

An Egyptian blogger jailed for criticising the country's military junta has declared himself ready to die, as his hunger strike enters its 57th day.

"If the militarists thought that I would be tired of my hunger strike and accept imprisonment and enslavement, then they are dreamers," said Maikel Nabil Sanad, in a statement announcing that he would boycott the latest court case against him, which began last Thursday. "It's more honourable [for] me to die committing suicide than [it is] allowing a bunch of Nazi criminals to feel that they succeeded in restricting my freedom. I am bigger than that farce."

Sanad, whom Amnesty International has declared to be a prisoner of conscience, was sentenced by a military tribunal in March to three years in jail after publishing a blog post entitled "The people and the army were never on one hand". The online statement, which deliberately inverted a popular pro-military chant, infuriated Egypt's ruling generals who took power after the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak, and have since been accused of multiple human rights violations in an effort to shut down legitimate protest and stifle revolutionary change.

The 26-year-old was found guilty of "insulting the Egyptian army". The case helped spark a nationwide opposition movement to military trials for civilians, and cast further doubt on the intentions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), whose promises regarding Egypt's post-Mubarak transition to democracy appear increasingly hollow.

Earlier this month, a military appeals court bowed to public pressure and ordered a retrial of Sanad. But they insisted it would once again take the form of a military tribunal, which international human rights organisations have condemned as falling short of the basic standards of legal justice. Up to 12,000 civilians are believed to have been tried in such courts since the fall of Mubarak, and the practice has continued despite a commitment this month from Egypt's de facto leader, Field Marshal Tantawi, to bring such trials to an end.

The military retrial opened in the absence of Sanad, his family and his lawyers. Sanad's younger brother Mark said they were refusing to participate in a "soap opera".

"Military tribunals are one of the most important tools used by Scaf to put an end to the ongoing wave of protests against them," claimed Mona Seif, a cancer researcher who has helped lead a campaign against the practice. "Sanad's case was one of the earliest, and it was a warning message to anyone thinking of exposing Scaf's crimes."

Sanad's health is believed to be in critical condition, and Amnesty has warned that his life "hangs in the balance".

Amnesty said: "Maikel Nabil Sanad's trial has been rife with flaws and unnecessary delays, and the decision of the appeals court for a retrial brings him back to square one, cruelly toying with his life. The charges against him must be dropped and he should be released immediately and unconditionally. He should never have been tried in the first place, let alone before a military court."

Mobilising support for Sanad has been hampered by the fact that he previously expressed pro-Israeli sentiments on his blog. "Scaf targeted him in particular because they knew it would be difficult to get a groundswell of sympathy for him, but the tide has turned now," argued Seif. "Most people are opposed to Scaf's military tribunals, and Sanad himself would rather walk slowly to death than acknowledge their legitimacy."

In his latest blog post, Sanad reiterated his refusal to engage with the military's legal "theatrics", saying: "I don't beg for my freedom from a group of killers and homeland-stealers." He went on to denounce an apology his father made on his behalf to Scaf in an unsuccessful effort to secure his release.

"The military council is the one that has to apologise for my imprisonment, my torture, silencing my mouth, spying on my life, my relatives and my friends," he wrote. "The military council is the one that has to apologise [for] its crimes of killing, torturing and unlawful prosecutions."