9/30/19

Message to the Muslims by UCLA's Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl


An excerpt of the Friday khutba of Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, Distinguished Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law on September 30, 2019:

"Every imam - and this is a message to all out there - every imam that defends an unjust ruler, that defends unjust imprisonments, that defends torture. Torture! Torture! That apologizes and justifies governments that rape women in political prisons. Every imam that does that - you know what it is that they are effectively saying? - they are saying that there is no philosophical justification for the Prophet Muhammad SAWS to be the last prophet. Because the way it all works, is that I have perfected.. here is God's perfected message, the complete message. Now that the prophecy has ended, your ummah should carry the torch. But if the ummah doesn't carry the torch, then what happens to the torch of the Prophet SAWS?

Do you see why this is a disaster? Do you see why this is a mind-numbing thing? When the Prophet says, okay, in the final day, in the hereafter, I have perfected the message, finally human beings have been elevated through Ibrahim and Musa and Ismail and Yaqub.. and so on.. have been elevated to understand the difference between uboodiyah - submission - to God and the degradation of submission to a fellow human being. Alhamdulillah, I have taught - we prophets - through generations taught you the message. Now what did you do as the great inheritors of Islam?

And you say, you know what, as Muslims what we have instituted is dictatorship, destitution, and suffering. Shameful! Untenable! Miserable!

The reason I say this is because this is our fate. This is our responsibility, this is what we are about. But as I speak right now there are people in countries like Egypt who are trying to remove a fascist - FASCIST - dictator called Abdul Fattah El Sisi. A fascist dictator who has imprisoned over sixty thousand people. Who has executed - murdered - thousands of people. And - and this is my specialty - who has practiced the worst forms of torture, including raping women and political prisoners. Of course, he labels anyone that he arrests and persecutes ikhwan or terrorist, including people who have lived their lives being anti-ikhwan like Professor Hassan Nafa', who was recently arrested and charged as a terrorist in Egypt. 

I can't give this khutba without thinking of how many brave souls are going to the streets and are going to end up thrown in a political prison or murdered - killed by the security forces. If I was in Egypt, then it would become my moral obligation to go and try to remove one of the worst pharaohs Egypt has seen in its history, in its long history. One of the most corrupt and brutal pharaohs that Egypt has ever seen. 

But because I am in America, the part that concerns me is that my president calls this fascist "my favorite dictator" and sits there and says, "there used to be chaos in Egypt before Abdel Fattah El Sisi came, now Egypt is okay." And I know that my president doesn't care about democracy in the Muslims world. But even worst, doesn't care about justice in the Muslims world. I know that my president is happy when he sees Muslims unjust, backwards, retarded, barbaric. It fulfills his world view. It affirms... I handled cases with a lot of New York, high level attorneys - commercial cases. And high level commercial cases in London. and one of the things that struck me about this high level attorney culture that get paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars for each hour, and so on and so forth is how thoroughly racist they are. As they worked on cases with Saudi money, Emirati money, and Qatari money, they at the same time looked at their clients as barbaric people - as nothing - simply because they are Muslim. 

The world is not going to do it for us, as Muslims, if we Muslims accept the likes of Abdel Fattah El Sisi as representative of one of the largest Muslim countries on earth, Egypt, and we accept that our American president supports and aids a fascist dictator like El Sisi. 

Then what are we about as an Ummah?"

Full video:

7/15/19

Egypt: Freedom for mothers imprisoned over political motivations



Since the 2013 military coup, Egypt has been holding more than 60,000 political prisoners in brutal conditions. Anyone, and seemingly everyone, who speaks openly about the military coup, and opposes the rampant injustice and oppression in the country is targeted for disappearance and imprisonment. Conditions were recently brought to international attention when former President Muhammad Morsi died in June due to medical neglect in an Egyptian courtroom.
Image may contain: 10 people, people smiling, text

One common trend of the Egyptian's security forces is to target Muslim women, particularly mothers. Three mothers recently imprisoned are Ola Al Qaradawi, Aya Alaa Hosni, and Reem El Desouky.
Ola Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian with permanent residency in the state of Washington in the USA, and the daughter of the popular Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, has been held in torturous conditions of solitary confinement since June, 2017 without any conviction. She was ordered released on July 3rd, 2019, but then was sent back to solitary confinement the next day on new charges. She is currently on hunger strike.
Ayaa Alaa Hosni, an Egyptian journalist, was disappeared in June, 2019. She is currently in prison, and is being targeted because she spoke to the media about the imprisonment of her husband, Hassan Qabbani. After the coup, he was imprisoned for several years, and only recently released. The couple have two daughters.
Reem El Desouky, an Egyptian-American resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was disappeared and imprisoned when she arrived in Egypt on July 8th, 2019. She has a strong reputation in the community in Pennsylvania, and wished to go visit family in Egypt, when, reportedly, her ex-husband reported her to the Egyptian authorities. The United States Embassy in Egypt refuses to support her release, despite her US citizenship.
Please share this information widely and speak up for the prisoners in Egypt. They have no other advocates besides you!

2/22/19

Feb 2019: An Egyptian Canadian citizen disappears in Egypt

There have been many cases of forced disappearances upon arrival to Egypt of Egyptians living abroad with no political activity, who haven't even been in the country for so long. Meanwhile, there is little to no reporting whatsoever in the countries where these people have immigrated, succeeded, and invested their lives and souls in.

The most recent case we came across is about Egyptian Canadian citizen Yasser Ahmed Albaz, an active leader in the Muslim community in Canada. We are sharing this message from his daughter's page, Amal Al Baz, a young woman poet.

https://www.facebook.com/amalahmedalbaz/

URGENT UPDATE ON YASSER AHMED (ALBAZ)
February 22, 2019


"Yasser Ahmed (Albaz) Detained By Egyptian Authorities

On Monday our family was horror-struck when our loved one, Yasser Albaz, disappeared in the Cairo International Airport by Egyptian authorities.

Yasser had traveled to Egypt in December for business purposes. However, while leaving Egypt to return home to Canada, as he was passing through passport control, he was pulled aside. Before losing communication he informed our family that he was pulled aside by passport control as his name was flagged for additional clearance. His last message was to a friend telling him that he was taken by Egypt’s state security.

The case has been reported to Global Affairs Canada and our family is in regular communication with consular authorities.

The Egyptian government denied detaining Yasser for days. It remains unclear why he is being unlawfully detained by Egyptian state security. It remains unknown when or if he will be released. And most critically, there is great concern around the condition of his detention and if he is being treated according to international human rights laws. Our family is gravely concerned for his safety and his life.

We hope our Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, will immediately contact the Egyptian government to resolve this matter and bring Yasser home to his wife, children, and grandchildren.

We are grateful to everyone who has reached out and offered support. Yasser is a well respected community leader and Canadian who has dedicated his life to serving his community and his country. 
Our family calls for community members to contact their Member of Parliament, express concern and request that the Minister of Foreign Affairs intervene and ensure his safe return home to Canada."
 
Nosayba Ahmed, an Egyptian woman in the US responded to the post saying: 

This happened to my parents too and they stayed under enforced disappearance for 22 days and now they are detained in different prisons on false charges, they took my sister who was dropping them off too and she stayed for 22 days under #enforceddisappearance too and they released her at 2 AM on the streets and told her to go home after they took her phone, car and money, I hope this doesn't happen to your brother and I'm praying that he is reunited with his family soon, we live a nightmare that we would never imagine happening in our life, my parents were coming to visit their daughters and grandchildren in the US where we live and they have visited many countries before, the sisi regime is criminal!

2/6/19

Mohamed Abdelhafiz: Deported from Turkey to face death


The Egyptian social media has been buzzing with the haunting photo of a young Egyptian man handcuffed and seated on a flight from Turkey as he was being deported to Egypt, a country he had to run away from to safe his life. 


This is Mohamed Abdel Hafiz with his son who was born outside of Egypt and has no documentation because of his father's political history. The wife and son are still stranded in an African country while Mohamed is forcibly disappeared in Egypt since his deportation.

Before he got to Turkey in January 2019, Mohamed had to run away from Egypt into several African and Asian countries (Sudan, Somalia, Malaysia, and others) after he was framed in a political case with hundreds of other innocent young Egyptians.
Turkish authorities deported him back to Egypt while aware of his death sentence and the fact he will be tortured or killed upon returning to Egypt. Mohamed is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and that shouldn't be a crime in itself as Sisi's government claims.
But mass executions in Egypt are a crime, and the Turkish authorities deporting a man whose life and safety are threatened is a crime.
According to the Egyptian state, Mohammed is considered a terrorist who is accused of participating with a hundred others in the assassination of an Egyptian official who received a death sentence in a mass trial along with all other defendants. However, anyone who is following and is aware of the tragic crisis in Egypt since the military coup in 2013 knows that fabricated accusations in unfair trials are far more common than anything otherwise.

it is very important to understand these verdicts in the light of the political atmosphere in Egypt after the military coup and the extremely harsh crackdown on dissent since then.
Mohamed's story is one of a thousand other stories for young Egyptian men victims of the bloody unjust military coup and corrupt judiciary system. On top of that very few countries open their doors to Egyptian runaways as refugees or asylum seekers. 

Abdurrahman Abu Elela maybe deported to Egypt from Turkey
Another victim who may face deportation from Turkey to Egypt soon whom we became acquainted with recently is Abdurrahman Abu Elela, a young Egyptian man who arrived to Turkey several months ago to seek asylum only to be detained inside the Turkish airport in Ankara but was sent to a border immigration prison in the past few days and is currently on a hunger-strike. 

These are just two examples with very limited reporting on Egyptian runaways who are seeking asylum and are being detained and deported instead of being supported.

Their stories are rarely told in other languages so we ask you to help us share them with the rest of the world.

1/5/19

Sisi denies holding 60,000 political prisoners, former prisoners respond



As a response to Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s blatant lies on a promo from CBS’s 60 Minutes show which will air tomorrow Sunday where he said: We don’t have any political prisoners in Egypt, some Egyptian former political prisoners and families of current political prisoners have responded with stories of their suffering and the injustice caused by political imprisonment in Egypt. Here we will share some of these comments they left on the CBS’s video story as well as on the hashtag #iamapoliticalprisoner #CBS:

 All these accounts were posted as comments on CBS’s Facebook page and they maybe lost in the future that’s why we wanted to keep them here for the record. The words and experiences of those prisoners and their families should get as much attention as this liar dictator is getting. We need to help spread them at least.






أنا سارة مهني صحفية.. اعتقلت يوم ٢٠١٧/٠٦/٢٩ بسبب كوني صاحبة رأي معارض لسياسات النظام الحاكم.. ظللت رهينة الاعتقال لمدة ٧٦ يوم و استأنفت على استمرار حبسي و تم اخلاء سبيلي و بعد ذلك حكم عليّ بعامين من محكمة امن الدولة طوارئ حكم بات لا يقبل النقض و لا يسقط بالتقادم.
1- My name is sara mohani, I'm an Egyptian journalist, I had been arrested on 2017/6/29 because I have a dissenting opinion to the policies of the ruling regime. I remained in detention for 76 days and I appealed the detention decision and released temporary and later I have been sentenced for 2 years by the state security court, which is not subject to veto or prescription.
2- Hesham Nasser" was detained 5 years ago when he was only 17 years old! They deprived him of completing his education. He has been tortured until he suffered Epilepsy and periodic paralysis. At the end, he was sentenced to 7 years in jail.

3- I’m Hoda Abdelmonem, 60 years old, a human rights defender and a former member of the National Council for Human Rights. I’m a mother and a grandmother. I was pulled off of my house at dawn two moths ago and taken to an unknown place. I couldn’t see my lawyer or my family for a long time. My place of detention is still unknown. I provide legal assistance to the victims in Egypt and now I’m with these victims inside. There’s 70 women politically detained in Egypt. I demand the release of all political detainees.

4- I’m Eid Dahroug, 70 years old. I was detained on 14/5/2014 along with my son Dr. Abdul-Rahman who was sent to Burj Al-Arab Prison where he spent two years of detention and suffered from all sorts of torture. As for me, I was put in a cell in Scorpion Prison since nearly 5 years and I’ve been deprived of my family visits for 9 months until now. Moreover, I suffer from medical negligence not to mention that I am 70 years old and I suffer from renal failure—that needs an urgent “nephrectomy of kidney” surgery—chronic eye fly, left hand paralysis, herniated disk in the neck vertebrae, and diaphragmatic rupture. Nevertheless, I’ve been deprived of medication and doctor visits. However, Sissi hadn’t been satisfied with that yet, so my second son, 17, was detained two months after my detention and then was sent to Wady Al-Natroun Prison where he is still confined for more than 4 years and a half during which he faced all sorts of torture and couldn’t complete his education until now.

5- I'm Ahmed Zakaria 23 years old I have been detained for 5 years since 15/8/2013 till 16/8/2018 i was 18 y.o when i detained .. I lost my dream to be a doctor cuz i cannot complete my education like i wanted and uptill now I still want to achieve my goal to be a doctor 😕😕

6- Attia: From the wife of a friend of mine who got arrested and in enforced disappearance: “This is the eleventh day of the enforced disappearance of my husband, "Mohammed Ezzeldin Malek" after his arrest while traveling Sunday December 23, 2018, from Cairo airport, Egypt. Three years ago he tried to travel with his family to USA, but he was prevented from travel at the airport. We were informed then that the reason for the ban is solely that he is the brother of "Hassan Malek." There were no charges against him but he was just prevented from travel. I was forced to take the children to USA out of fear of further persecution to the family, so my husband was separated from his wife and children for the past 3 years. Our daughter was severely ill and one of his friends told him that the illegal travel ban on travel was removed so he tried to book a flight and travel to USA to be reunited with his family.

My husband had completed his travel procedures legally at the airport and his papers and passport were all official and legal. Without any lawful reason the commercial aircraft was brought back after take-off, and shortly before arriving to its destination. My husband was taken off the plane without any legal charges. My husband has disappeared since that time and we are terrified that he is being subjected to torture or that he may be assassinated. 

We were dreaming as a family that we could have a safe and quiet life. We would be together to deal with the medical hardships that our daughter has. Instead, I have to keep hiding the bad news from my children while waiting for the unknown. I have to deal with the pain, anxiety, and inability to do anything to help my husband. I don't know for how long I will have to make up excuses to answer the constant question from my children "Why doesn’t my father call" O God, Please save my husband...”

7- Sayed Abdelgawad: The son of my friend , 14 years old is hold in Sisi' prison since 2013.

8- I have my brother now political prisoner his name is Mohamed abdelsalm aboserya.

9- Khadeja Ahmed: I am an Egyptian woman, I was arrested by Egyption forces from my home and still in the prison for 6 months. I am evidance for many children under age 18 were arrested and stay untill now in Sisi's prisons #I_am_a_political_prisoner

10- #Mohamed_Ali_Bishr 68 years old , arrested from 4 years without any crime at scorpion jail .. I couldn’t see my lawyer or my family since #march 2018.

11- My name is Zeinab Hassan. I was arrested on 4/11/2013 and suffered from numerous verbal, physical and psychological abuses. Furthermore, I was faced with many fabricated accusations that no girl can ever commit, like: bearing a machine gun, assaulting security forces, public security threat, and spreading terror among citizens. All of that was because I oppose the regime’s policies. This, I was detained for 45 days, made an appeal while in jail then I was released. After that I was sentenced to 2 years in jail and now I’ve fled Egypt.

12- I’m Sohaib Emad, 20 years old. I’ve been arrested when I was 15 among my mum and family. I’ve faced fabricated accuses that never suit my age, like setting fire in police cars and targeting cops! I was sentenced to 3 years in jail, all of which I spent in the brutal inhumane prison. 1 year later after I’ve been released, however, I was detained again for 1 week. My friends are still suffering in jail. I demand the release of all political prisoners in Egypt.

13- I’m Abdul-Rahman Atef, an Egyptian attorney who has been detained many times in several governorates for lawsuits that have nothing to do with me. Recently, some sentences was pronounced against me, and I was accused of other new political cases. The only reason for all of this nonsense is that I’m a human rights advocate in Egypt.
The following is a translated blog post from 2 years ago written by a political prisoner after being released from prison.