CAIRO: The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), one of Egypt’s leading human rights organizations, issued a press release Wednesday urging the immediate release of Hassan Abdullah Eid, secretary of youth at the Tagamoa Party in North Sinai and the coordinator of Sinai Youth for Change Movement.
According to EOHR, Abdullah has recently gone on a hunger strike as a protest for being detained with no legal basis and for the alleged maltreatment he continuously suffers at the Gharbaniat Prison.
In its press release, the EOHR stresses that “repetitive detention constitutes a vehement violation to the right to freedom and personal safety, to be tried before a normal judiciary, and to challenge the legality of the detention. This practice also deprives them from the right to implement acquittance verdicts, as stipulated in the Egyptian Constitution and international human rights documents.
Last weekend, journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy traveled to Al-Arish in North Sinai to follow up on the case. At the Tagamoa office in Arish, he met with Hassan Abdullah’s two brothers, mother and sister, as well as veteran activist Ashraf Ayoub, a pro-Palestinian campaigner in Arish since 1984.
Hassan Abdullah was reportedly kidnapped from his house in Arish last month by state security agents. Shortly thereafter, death threats were issued against Abdullah’s two brothers Wael and Mohamed. Currently, the brothers are taking refuge in the office of the Tagamoa Party and are staging a continuous sit-in.
Abdullah Hassan and his family joined the Tagamoa Party during the security crackdowns in Taba following the bombings in 2004. Abdullah’s mother, Kawthar, and his sister Soheir were active protestors against the widespread torture and kidnappings carried out by state security agents, El-Hamalawy continues.
“The threats never stopped, Hassan Abdullah’s mother said. Colonels Essam Amer and Major Hussein Mansour from the state security advised us several times to leave the party, but we refused .
According to El-Hamalawy, Hassan Abdullah’s 22-year old brother, Wael, was brought into detainment by state security on October 29, 2004, as part of the mass crackdown on the town of Arish. He was kept for three months by state security in Arish, and another three months in the Damanhour prison.
He was supposedly brutally tortured by his interrogators, who stripped him off his clothes, threatened him with rape and applied electric shocks on several parts of his body, before releasing him, allegedly saying, “Ma3lesh (never mind), you are not involved, el-Hamalawy states.
Abdullah’s older brother Mohamed, was reportedly also detained and abused for three months by state security.
Hassan Abdullah started to receive threats after chanting anti-governmental slogans during pro-Lebanese resistance demos in Arish last July.
According to Hassan’s mother, “state security officers phoned him several times, with threats and intimidation to leave the Tagamoa party and quit activism.
On Sept. 7, state security agents stormed the Abdullah family house and kidnapped Hassan in his underwear.
Hassan was kept in State Security Arish bureau for a week before being transferred to Bourg Al-Arab prison. According to his mother Kawthar, state security officers refused to receive the clothes and food his sister and his friend Shadi Ayoub tried to bring Hassan during his detainment in Arish.
To this day, Hassan has not been able to meet with the prosecutor. His two brothers are still taking refuge in the office of the Tagamoa Party, El-Hamalawy argues.
In addition to urging the immediate release of Hassan Abdullah, the EOHR “requests from Judge Abdul Magid Mahoud, the Prosecutor General, to implement Article 42 of the Criminal Procedures Code and to dispatch a representative to investigate the situation inside the Gharbaniat Prison to avoid endangering Abdullah s life.
More information on security crackdowns against Sinai Bedouins following the October 2004 Taba bombings can be found in the Human Rights Watch report “Mass Arrests and Torture in Sinai.
