Blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah: A return to Mubarak’s prisons

2 Nov 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa

Cross posted from Felix Arabia

I did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years. After a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail?

The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 metres) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They were trampled upon three times in one day. I realise suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similarly flimsy accusations  and reasons of that incarceration. The only difference is that we have exchanged state security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living in.

The previous time, I was joined in detention by 50 colleagues from the Kefaya movement, but on this occasion I am alone, together with eight wrongly accused.

As soon as they realised that I was from the “Youth of the Revolution” they started cursing at the revolution and how it failed in “sorting out” the Interior Ministry. I spent the first two days listening to stories of torture by the police force, which is not only adamantly resisting reform, but also seeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and the innocent.

From their stories I discover the truth of the great achievements of the restoration of security. Two of my colleagues are in jail for the first time, simple youth without a grain of violence. And what is it they are accused of? Forming a gang. Now I understand what the Interior Ministry means when it reports that it has caught armed gangs. I congratulate the country for the restoration of security then.

In the following few hours, sunlight will enter our always dim cell, we read the creative Arabic engravings of a former colleague, four walls from floor to ceiling covered in Quran, prayers, supplications, thoughts and what appear to be the will of a tyrant to repent.

The next day we discover in the corner the date of the inmate’s execution and we are overwhelmed by tears.

The guilty plan on repenting, but the innocent do not know what to do to avoid a similar fate.

On the radio I hear the speech of his Excellency the General inaugurating the tallest flag pole in the world, one which will certainly enter the record books. And I wonder: Was the inclusion of the name of the martyr Mina Daniel as one of the instigators in my case also a record in audacity? On the basis of it not being sufficient for them to be first to kill the victim and to walk in the funeral but also to spit on the corpse and accuse it of a crime?

Or perhaps this cell can win the record of the number of cockroaches? My thoughts are interrupted by Abu Mailk: “I swear to God Almighty, if the wronged are not absolved, this revolution will not succeed.”

The third day, 1/11/2011Cell 19, Prison of Appeal, Bab Al KhalqAlaa Abdel Fattah


Report: Maikel Nabil Sanad transferred to psychiatric hospital

18 Oct 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa

Sahar Maher, human rights activist and a member of the Free Maikel campaign, has told Index that authorities are transferring Maikel Nabil to a “mental hospital”, where he would be “put under watch for 45 days to make sure his mental situation is OK”. Nabil, who was handed a three-year prison sentence for criticising the practice of trying civilians in military courts, was scheduled to have a re-trial today, but is refusing to stand trial. Family members fear that Nabil, who has been on hunger strike for 57 days, will die while imprisoned. On 17 October, Nabil made a statement from El-Marg prison on his reasons for refusing to attend his trial:

I also felt great insult from the insistence of my lawyers to ignore my willingness in boycotting the military judiciary, and their insistence to impose a guardianship on me and to litigate before the military judiciary without my knowledge and against my will. That’s why I announce that I won’t attend tomorrow’s session, and that no lawyer represents me before the military judiciary. May the militarists go to hell with their ugly theatrical play, I don’t beg for my freedom from a group of killers and homeland stealers.

Maher said that she supports Nabil’s decision, and added that “the judges don’t care about how people feel or what people do.” Maher, who is pessimistic about Nabil’s future, saw him yesterday and described him as looking “very ill and very weak”. Since Nabil’s lawyers did not attend court, Maher said that the court “commissioned another lawyer from the military court itself”, and that the lawyer asked that Nabil be moved to a mental hospital, and the court accepted the suggestion. Now that Nabil may be transferred to the hospital, Maher is worried that he will be kept in the hospital, and that he will be in captivity indefinitely.

Maher, who was arrested earlier this month while demonstrating for Nabil’s release, mentioned that she has faced a series of threats for speaking out against military trials and the treatment of Nabil, much like his father and brother. In his statement, Nabil condemned the threats against Maher and his family members:

I was saddened for the militarists’ chasing of the leaderships of the movement and especially my sister and my colleague Sahar Maher and threatening them with death, imprisonment and attempting to recruit them to the Intelligence as the militarists attempted with me and fail continually.

Maher said that “being threatened” is the least of her worries, and that she is more concerned with “what the country is going through.”

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