Mohamed Mostafa\/Demotix. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n
The news of Sisi pardoning
\na hundred activists leaves me more angry than joyful. It's not that I'm not
\nhappy the injustice of false imprisonment has been suspended, but that for some
\nreason the pardon highlights the injustices that persist. The news comes ahead
\nof Sisi's visit to New York for the UN assembly, and follows the deadly
\nattacks by the Egyptian army on Egyptian and Mexican tourists that left 12
\ndead in the Western desert.<\/p>\n
Once again, in the
\nalleviation of the deliberate injustices inflicted upon these citizens,
\njournalists and activists, they are used as a bargaining chip. Even in their
\nrelease they are used to further Sisi's political agenda of buying people's
\nsilence on the irresponsibility with which he deals with Egyptian resources and
\nlives. With people reporting it as 'great news', it feels as though I'm
\nexpected to celebrate the release of these activists, maybe because I know most
\nto be innocent, maybe because they're famous and maybe because some of those
\nreleased include friends.<\/p>\n
But I find myself
\nthinking of those who were not released, such as Alaa
\nAbdel Fattah, who remains a prisoner of conscience, or Mahienour
\nEl-Massry, or Ahmed Douma, Ahmed
\nMaher and Mohamed
\nAdel. I also think about the multitude of others such as Mahmoud
\nHussein, a young boy who has been in pre-trial detention for over 600 days
\nfor wearing a 'no to torture' T-shirt, or Shawkan,
\na photojournalist who has been in jail without trial for over two years\u2014exceeding the maximum possible pre-trial detention, in
\nviolation of Egypt's own laws. I think about the thousands who are held
\nin prison, with or without charge, with or without trials, who are not getting
\nthe exposure necessary to make their release a political win for Sisi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The word 'pardon'
\nincenses me. It is a clear indication that a tiny amelioration of injustice,
\nsmall as it may be, is the exception in a judiciary structurally designed to
\ndeliver injustice. Prisoners of conscience remain locked up several Eid feasts
\nin a row, as the boy who cried 'pardon' too many times continues to use them as
\na bargaining chip.<\/p>\n
There are over
\n40,000 people that have been incarcerated without due process under Sisi, and
\nof late scores of young activists have disappeared, largely through
\nextrajudicial kidnappings performed by Sisi's police force. The number of
\npeople released is a drop in the ocean and is meant to alleviate international
\npressure, particularly when it comes to the AlJazeera
\njournalists, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.<\/p>\n
Had the sentences
\nbeen just one year, would people be celebrating the release? What we see here
\nis an oppressor who has decided to reduce his torture of a hundred people out
\nof thousands. Are we expected to commend the oppressor or celebrate the little
\nrelief afforded to a few? It would be like commending a killer for partly
\nstopping their killing spree, or a torturer for suspending some of his
\nactivities on a select few.<\/p>\n
Egypt's security
\napparatus operates with impunity. The law is used as a tool to manipulate
\njustice not to attain it. People's freedoms are a currency used by the regime.
\nSisi himself admitted
\nto knowing there are innocent people in jail, yet declared he saw it as a
\nnecessity. How can we celebrate when he pardons the innocent?<\/p>\n
I do
\nnot mean to undermine the happiness of those who will get to see their loved
\nones and friends. I myself feel a sense of relief that I will be seeing some of
\nEgypt's finest very soon. Yet to be truthful, the prevailing sentiment is
\nanger. I'm angry that our justice system terrorises the innocent, angry that
\nwe're run by a police state that tortures and imprisons its youth, angry that
\nmany killed by the army are automatically declared as terrorists posthumously.<\/p>\n
I'm
\nangry because the Sisi regime feels like man who stole all your money, and is
\nnow throwing you a bit of change expecting you to be grateful. I'm angry that
\nthose pardoned were put in a jail they don't belong to in the first place and
\nthat it takes a criminal to pardon the innocent.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mohamed Mostafa\/Demotix. All rights reserved. The news of Sisi pardoning a hundred activists leaves me more angry than joyful. It's not that I'm not happy the injustice of false imprisonment has been suspended, but that for some reason the pardon highlights the injustices that persist. The news comes ahead of Sisi's visit to New York…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}