August 17th, 2018
Ola al Qaradawi has now been on a hunger strike for 52 days.
52 days without food, and her family has no way of finding out more information about her health and well-being.
After being detained in solitary confinement in a windowless cell in Egypt for a year without a bed, proper food or medical care, Ola decided to protest against these horrible and inhumane conditions on June 26th 2018.
“I am grateful to everyone who has been fighting for my freedom and to the US Embassy for trying to attend. But I cannot handle the abuse anymore and I can’t take my situation any more. I have no choice but to go on a hunger strike” -Ola
Ever since these words, no one has heard a word back from Ola. Her lawyer was able to see her once through a glass cage in a courtroom extension hearing last week. He wasn’t allowed to speak with her. But he described her as having become an old fragile lady who has lost significant weight.
Her conditions have become life threatening. She is no longer her vivid cheerful soul. Her health has deteriorated to such extent that the lawyer worries if she can make it to the next hearing. This slow death sentence has already started to take place and her family is worried about her life.
As seen in the past deaths from starvation in hungers trikes can start to occur between 45-61 days. But what makes Ola’s case especially worrisome, is knowing that she has no direct contact with the outside world. No one knows if she’s in dire need of medical help as we speak right now. Being denied all forms of communication, Ola is alone as she struggles to stay alive in this slow death sentence that no one, let alone a woman of her age deserves to live through.
It’s been 52 days, Ola’s health conditions have already become life threatening, and the human body can only last so long without food.
The #FreeOlaandHosam campaign demands that Ola be taken out of solitary confinement, moved into medical care and provided with her rights to legal and family visitations. Ola started this hunger strike to protest the unbearable conditions she has been subjected to; conditions hat Amnesty International has already deemed as torture.
But now it has become torture, a hunger strike, and a question of survival.
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