- EGYPT
- November 4, 2015
- 5 minutes read
Egypt Revolutionary Women Coalition: Junta Prisons Hide Many Tortured Esraas
The Revolutionary Coalition for Egyptian Women (RCEW), along with all Egyptians, sadly watched Esraa El-Taweel’s tears in the sham court session that renewed her pre-trial detention for a further 45 days yesterday (Monday, November 2, 2015), after five whole months of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and medical neglect in dark junta dungeons and jails.
Esraa is a vivid example of what is happening inside prisons and detention centers in Egypt, where security apparatuses’ standard procedure is to arrest and lay false charges against any seemingly anti-coup individual, whether it is a child, a man, a woman, young or old.
In the eyes of coup authorities, all citizens are guilty; belong in prisons and detention centers, not schools, universities, factories or business enterprises. They are all guilty, because they are Egyptians who one day entertained a dream of freedom. It does not even matter to the junta regime whether a person had in fact sought to realize that democracy dream or not. He is still guilty.
The coup generals only know arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, inhuman torture, extrajudicial executions and unspeakable massacres. This is why Esraa El-Taweel shed tears of bitterness and pain, of oppression and injustice, even though she does not know the reason for her predicament. Prison walls are harsh on the innocent and the true patriots.
Sadly, there are many Esraas, with many similarly tragic tearful tales. More than 1,500 girls and women have suffered or are still suffering the bitterness of detention in hateful junta prisons. In fact, 66 girls and women are still crying in anguish and pain, oppressed and persecuted, even if we have not seen their tears.
The story of Esraa is repeated with Damietta’s Maryam and Fatima Turk as well as Fatima Ayyad – suffering inhuman abuse and squalid conditions in detention, along with ten other women and girls in Port Said Prison. They also suffer total medical negligence and hence are falling victims of many devastating diseases. They all cry for help, but we have not seen their tears.
The story of Esraa is also repeated with Kerdasa’s Samya Shanan, who is a guiltless detainee. She was the first woman to be sentenced to death by coup justice. She was subjected to severe torture, humiliation and tremendous pressures. She, too, cried, mourning the death of Egyptian justice, and the death of the worlds’ conscience, but we have not seen her tears.
Esraa’s farcical trial brings to mind the case of female student Heba Kishta who was sentence to two years in prison by a military court in Port Said. She had been arrested from her university campus on October 30, 2015 while trying to help a wounded student.
RCEW urges all Egyptians to rise in a powerful revolt, supported by civil society organizations, NGOs and human rights institutions, to stop the tears of Egyptian women. Everyone should at least call for their unconditional release without delay.
Today, it is everyone’s duty to extend a helping hand to Egyptian women, mothers, daughters and sisters, in order for them to return to their families, schools and universities. We need to respond more conscientiously to Esraa’s tears. We all are sad victims, suffering blind justice that crushes the innocent and makes them bleed, rather than wipe off the tears of the oppressed.
Revolutionary Coalition for Egyptian Women
Cairo: Tuesday – November 3, 2015
