• EGYPT
  • November 21, 2017
  • 3 minutes read

Ibrahim Halawa: EU is Partner of the Human Rights Abuses in Egypt

Ibrahim Halawa: EU is Partner of the Human Rights Abuses in Egypt

Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish Egyptian political prisoner who was released  from Egyptian prisons on October 20, 2017 after 4 years in detention,  called on EU countries to stop sending aid to Ministry of Interior as their aid only benefits the authorities and make them keep prisoners in their custody indefinitely, stressing that as long as there is financial aid, detainees will languish in shackles. Halawa stressed that, since the coup, people in Egypt are detained, killed and burned, if they express their opinion


In his first private interview, he said that Sisi’s characterizations of political prisoners as extremist and terrorists, are lies and nonsense. Young activists came out to express their opinion, which is afforded by the most basic rights and guaranteed by law. 

For instance, I obtained a court acquittal after four years of imprisonment. How many innocents are languishing behind bars due to charges of opinion expression? The real matter is freedom of opinion and expression for which so many have sacrificed.

 Halawa made it clear that the current Irish government has stepped up its pressure on Sisi regime to release him; also the European Parliament has called to stop aid to Egypt and to release the prisoners of conscience. That created an urgent desire on the part of the Egyptian regime to get rid of me and of the pressures exerted on them that, in turn, raise the prisoners of conscience issues, in addition to my case.

In an interview with the electronic news website, Arabi21, Halawa criticized the aggravated suffering of thousands of political detainees in Egyptian prisons, stressing that the Egyptian laws and regulations of prisons merely ink on paper; prison is a private property of the prison warden. He can do anything to the detainees without any accountability; and practices all of his whims according to his mood. If his preferred football team lost a game, for instance, this may prompt him to ‘shake down’ the prison, to search prison cells, and to strip prisoners’ belongings. 

Halawa was released from Egyptian prisons last October after spending more than four years following his arrest and his three sisters in connection with the well-known case known as “Al-Fath Mosque” in Cairo in August 2013 in the aftermath of military coup against the first freely elected civilian Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi.