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The Forgotten Victims of another “War on Terror”
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Sixty-year-old Aisha displays a picture of her then 14-year-old son, Abdullah, shortly before his detention.
Click
to enlarge |
Once,
sometimes twice, a month, Aisha Abdel Salam Saleh is ready for
her journey by early sunrise. “For three days before it, I
already can’t sleep! I am tense all the time,” she says.
Waiting to see her youngest son, Abdullah, who has been detained
without charges for seven years, the sixty-year-old woman spends
days cooking her son’s favorite homemade food.
Aisha
runs to meet a small group of women in black niqab (face veil),
also carrying big baskets of food—all on their way to visit
their incarcerated siblings in
Egypt
’s Wadi al-Natroun II prison. “The cab costs 80 [Egyptian]
pounds. I can’t afford it on my own, so we all split the
fare” of a two-hour journey, says Aisha. “I am now allowed
to visit him every week, but I cannot do that anymore. I am too
old.”
Aisha
and the other women gather in front of the prison gate for a few
hours, before seeing their relatives during a visit that lasts
one hour. She then takes the road back to her small house on the
outskirts of Kerdassa village in
Giza
, the twin city of
Cairo
, where she lives alone.
She
runs around searching the drawers in her room, and proudly
produces a picture of Abdullah, taken shortly before State
Security detained him in 1997. He was then a 14-year-old student
in his first year of high school, she remembers.
“He
had nothing to do with politics,” she insists. “They
arrested him to know the whereabouts of his two brothers. They
tortured him to make false confessions, although he does not
know anything.”
Abdullah’s
eldest brother is Mohamed Nasr Eddin Farag al-Ghizlani, who was
sentenced by a military court in 1997 to 15 years in prison,
along with his middle brother Essam, then a first year
Engineering student. The government accused Mohamed of leading
an Islamic Jihad cell that was planning to attack an Israeli
tourist group in Khan al-Khalili bazaar. The Kerdassa group
allegedly was clustered around the village mosque, where they
used to meet and discuss the theology of jihad. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the government said, tried to mobilize the group
using two operatives, Mahmoud Shaaban al-Deeb and Adel Ali
Bayoumi al-Soudani to revive the armed struggle. Mohamed
al-Ghizlani himself had earlier spent three years in prison in
the mid 1980s, for alleged involvement with other Jihad
militants in burning a video store.
Mohamed’s
lawyer Montasser al-Zayat insists the accusations were
fabricated, and that the Kerdassa group did not do anything but
“talk.”
As
for Aisha, she remembers a different Mohamed—a shy boy, who
did not mix a lot with other kids despite his love for soccer.
His main concern was what he regarded as disintegration of
“religious morals.” After his release in 1989, Aisha
continues, he enrolled in law school, got his degree and settled
down with a wife and two children.
However,
“if you are arrested once, they always come back for you,”
she says. “For them, anyone who leaves his beard is a
terrorist.”
“For
them, anyone who leaves his beard is a terrorist.” |
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State
security agents were frequent visitors to the Ghizlanis, since
Mohamed’s release in 1990. Mohamed and Essam were usually
interrogated or briefly detained. It wasn’t till seven years
later that the government cracked down heavily on the village
and the mosque’s attendants.
“They
parked the prison truck, with its backdoor blocking the
mosque’s entrance. They snatched everybody coming out… and
shoved them inside the truck. Then they came for my sons,”
Aisha recalls in horror.
Mohamed
escaped and was picked up later by the police in
Alexandria
, while Essam turned himself in to the authorities after hiding
for a short period.
Their
youngest brother, Abdullah, was taken later. And secret police
agents showed up regularly at the family’s house for
interrogating the parents. “They (security services) have
psychologically drained us,” said Aisha.
Aisha
stayed for seven years without being able to see at least the
two eldest sons except in the military court. Only last Eid, and
on the Prophet’s birthday that she was allowed prison access.
Her case, though, is not unique. The Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights (EOHR) has highlighted other similar cases in a
report published earlier this year titled, “Members of One
Family Under Detention.”
A
visit to Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayat’s office in
downtown
Cairo
, can clearly demonstrate that
Egypt
’s “war on terror” is by no means over. The reception room
was full of veiled women, young and old bearded men in white
galabayias—all there to follow on the cases of their detained
sons, brothers or husbands. Zayat’s young assistants were
usually running around with papers and folders, replying to
phone calls, assuring their worried clients that he was doing
his best to get their sons out, or obtain prison visit permits.
“No
one knows the exact figure of Islamist detainees in
prison.” |
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“No
one knows the exact figure of Islamist detainees in prison,”
Zayat told me. “The government has not released an official
figure. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said they are
around 16,000. I say they are about 35,000 prisoners; 5,000 were
released so now we may have less than 30,000 political
prisoners.”
I
could not independently confirm that figure.
Since
Gamaa Islamiya
,
Egypt
’s largest militant group, announced its renunciation of
violence following its unilateral ceasefire in 1997, prison
conditions have improved for the incarcerated members of the
group, and their families. Prison visits have become more
regular, security hassles for the militants’ families almost
stopped. But, according to Zayat and EOHR reports, the picture
may still be different for the Islamic Jihad, which hasn’t
renounced violence in principle despite being out of business
for years.
Scores
of alleged Jihad militants still lie in prison without charges,
and denied family visits. “The minister of interior bans the
visit by a decree,” Zayat complained. “We appeal against it
at the state council. The state council reverses the decision.
The minister issues a new decree the following day. And so
on!”
Such
a cat-and-mouse game between the Ministry of interior and
Islamist lawyers is also in effect when it comes to the
continuous detention of militants (and sometimes their
relatives) without charges.
“We
submit a complaint asking for the detainees’ release. The
authorities transfer them from their prisons to temporary
detention cells at the State Security premise in downtown, until
the court and state security look into their cases,” Zayat
explained. “They stay for a week or two, during which State
Security investigates their case. Usually the release is
refused, and the detainees go back once again to prison.”
I
spent 36 hours with 18 alleged Jihad detainees in one of those
temporary underground detention cells back in October 2000, when
I was detained briefly as part of the government’s crackdown
on leftist students involved in the solidarity movement with the
Palestinian Intifada.
“He
smokes and used to drink alcohol! Does he look like a
Muslim terrorist to you?” |
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Among
my “jihadi” cellmates was Sayyed, a pharmacist in his 30s
who was eager to know about the latest comedy movies in theatres
and good seafood places. Another was Mustafa, a building
contractor and a Marlboro-Lights-chain-smoker. Both had been
detained for a year without charges. They insisted they were
never affiliated with the Jihad, but their cousins were. “My
cousin, the male members of the family including myself, and his
male friends in the neighborhood, were all detained,” Sayyed
told me. “They know quite well I’m not in the Jihad. They
have been torturing me for a year, asking ‘What did your
cousin used to tell you?’
“Look
at Mr. Mustafa!” Sayyed continued, laughing. “He smokes and
used to drink alcohol! Does he look like a Muslim terrorist to
you?” Mustafa was then busy, convincing our jailers to buy him
a new cigarettes pack.
Mustafa
and Sayyed told me they spent their detention time between
al-Aqrab and Tora prisons, and the State Security cell in
Lazoughli whenever their families submitted a complaint. I
don’t know what happened to them later. I don’t know if they
were released or not. And I don’t know if Sayyed took his wife
and daughter to that small seafood restaurant I described to him
in
Heliopolis
.
Hossam
el-Hamalawy
is an Egyptian freelance journalist and writer based in
Cairo
. He contributes to several publications including the
Cairo
times and
Middle East
Times. His main fields of interest are militant Islam, social
movements, and human rights in
Egypt
. You can reach him at hhamalawy77@hotmail.com
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