Hassan Mustafa
A leading activist in Alexandria is currently detained with false charges & under threat of a 3-years prison sentence.
Hassan was arrested on 21st of
January as he was filing a complaint inside Mansheyya Courts Complex, at the
prosecutor general’s office, against the random detention of protesters &
children from a protest outside the same Court on the previous day. The protest
was taking place during the trial of police officers accused of killing protesters
in the 25 January Revolution.
Hassan was falsely accused of attacking a
prosecutor. His detention order got renewed; he was beaten in detention after
refusing solitary confinement, and currently faces the threat of 3-years
imprison sentence.
This is not the first time Hassan gets
detained. On 6
April 2010 he was also beaten up & detained while participating in a
protest demanding an end to “emergency laws”.
Hassan is not alone; he has the support of
lawyers from the “Front to Defend Egypt Protesters”, as do more than 500 detainees who got
randomly arrested from all over Egypt in the past 3 weeks. Notably, not all
were protesters; some were just passers-by, often on their way home. One third
of all detainees are children, and all have faced illegal detention in Central
Security camps, beatings and torture.
The following is an open letter that Hassan
addresses to Morsi from his prison cell *
Mr. President, I will speak truth to your power. We have suffered
before and during your reign. You are no Moses, but another Pharaoh, wanting
nothing but the advancement of yourself and your brotherhood.
Justice can't find its way to your rule, truth has no place under
your government, the oppressed find no justice in your judiciary, for your
state is a state of oppression and tyranny, following in the steps of those who
came before you. You bedamn land and offspring, spread poverty and hunger,
wherever you walk. You have built an entourage of those who serve injustice and
thrive on oppression, as if there was no lesson to be learned from what
happened to your predecessor.
May God bestow change on us and bless us with the power to show
you, your brotherhood and your entourage that what you have feared.
"Pharaoh exalted himself on earth, and divided the people
into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons and
sparing their daughters. He was verily a corrupter. And we wished to bestow
grace on those who were oppressed, to make them leaders and make them inherit
the earth, and to grant them power and, at their hands, show Pharaoh and Haman
and their soldiers what they had feared." (Quran 28:4-6)
From a speaker of truth against your injustice and a prisoner in
your state of oppression and tyranny.
Hassan Mustafa
Cell 14, High-security ward 23, Section 5, Burj Al-Arab Remand Prison
Written on Friday 8 February, 2013
The brutality of the police is still the
same.** Activists continue to be targeted, just as they were during Mubarak’s era,
but now with the blessings of Morsi & the MB.
FREE Hassan & all detainees.
* Translated by Nariman Youssef, original Arabic letter can be
found here
** For more about state crimes and recent torture cases by police,
please read EIPR’s
report “State crimes remained
unpunished: the Interior Ministry is above the law and the Public Prosecution
is missing in action”