Mohamed Soltan

Soltan is an Egyptian-American human rights advocate. He was born in Egypt and moved to the US in the mid-1990s at the age of 7 where he lived in several cities (Boston, Kansas City, Detroit, Columbus). Soltan played junior varsity and varsity basketball in high school, and was active in his local community. From a young age, he took initiatives to helping people, and frequently volunteered in local soup kitchens.

Soltan is the second oldest of five children, and his mother and father are middle school sweethearts from a small village in Egypt. He grew up in a loving and supportive household that always emphasized independence and creativity. His father, Salah Soltan, is a prominent scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, who taught at many distinguished Islamic educational institutions, and has authored over 80 books on varying issues from the obligation to vote in the US, to married life in the West and women's inheritance in Islam. His father is ideologically affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood,[6] but Mohamed and his family have confirmed that he is not a member of that group or have any other affiliations in Egypt.[7]

Soltan took an open-ended break from his school when the 2011 revolution broke out and went to Egypt to join the youth's revolution for freedom. He and his friends at Ohio State University created shirts for the youth coalition to wear in the entrances of Tahrir Square. Soltan joined the sit-in in Tahrir and was on the frontline at the presidential palace in Egypt when President Mubarak was forced to step down. Weeks after, Soltan returned to the US and toured university campuses to speak about his experience during the revolution.

After graduating from Ohio State University with a bachelors of science degree in economics in 2012, Soltan moved back to Egypt, to aid his ill mother who was receiving treatment for cancer. He worked as a business development manager for an Egyptian petroleum service company.[3] During that time, his father served as the Deputy Minister of Islamic Endowment in the 2012 Morsi administration.[8]

Soltan has been making international headlines since August 2013, when he was swept up in the crackdown on pro-Morsi demonstrators protesting the 3 July 2013 Military Coup de'état. In protest of the return of military rule, Soltan joined the Rab’aa Al-Adawiya sit-ins, where he served as a de facto citizen-journalist and often coordinated with foreign journalists and the protestors.[9] As a result, he became a first hand witness to the violent dispersal of the sit-in, where he sustained a gunshot wound in the arm by snipers while live-tweeting what later came to be known as the bloodiest massacre in Egypt's recent history.[10]

Soltan was subsequently arrested, along with three journalists by Egyptian security forces on 25 August 2013 shortly afterward, while recovering at his family home in the suburbs of Cairo. He disappeared for two days, and was blindfolded, beaten, and interrogated by state security officers about his father's whereabouts. During the first months of his imprisonment, he was tortured, beaten on his broken arm and was deliberately denied medical attention. Soltan wrote a letter to his mother, letter to President Obama, and a letter home describing the circumstances in which he was living.

Months into his imprisonment, Soltan began an open-ended hunger strike that lasted 489 days to protest his unjust imprisonment and the inhumane detention conditions.[11][12] On 30 May 2015, shortly after an Egyptian judge sentenced him to life in prison along with 37 others, including 13 journalists,[13][14] the United States government spoke out against the sentencing and the White House condemned Soltan's sentencing, and demanded his immediate release.[15][16] According to a Guardian report citing an independent medical report facilitated by the US embassy, Soltan had lost at least a third of his bodyweight and was unable to stand unassisted on his 100th day of hunger strike in jail.[17]

On 27 May 2014, a video showing Soltan was released by CNN's Christiane Amanpour in which Soltan asks President Obama and the international community for help.[18] [19]

Soltan's hunger-strike was supported by a world-wide campaign effort, both locally in Egypt and Internationally in the US and Europe. The campaign was managed by Soltan's older sister and consisted of family, friends, lawyers, human rights defenders from across the world. The campaign focused on managing messaging, channeling it effectively in legal and governmental circles. The campaign succeeding in rallying thousands of people from all walks of life behind Soltan's plight.

The #FreeSoltan campaign has accused the U.S. government of not doing enough to push Egyptian authorities to resolve or drop his case, which they say is politically motivated.[3] Supporters of Soltan have also called the charges against him to be politically motivated.[1] The hunger strike by Soltan has sparked criticism of the Egyptian authorities on social media and led to mass petitions and demonstrations to highlight his imprisonment.[19] A US embassy official has said embassy representatives have visited Soltan several times at the Tora prison outside Cairo and have been present at Soltan's hearings.[3]

The campaign became the complementing component in the formula that eventually led to Soltan's freedom.

Following his release, Soltan has briefed many senior government officials.[20][21] He testified in congress to the Lantos Commission on Human Rights. Soltan also briefed non-governmental organizations, human rights organizations and other advocacy groups to discuss the gross human rights violations he had faced in prison and that many continue to face.