Two photos, one for a Cairo University professor lying on the ground in front of a prison after being denied visit to her son, and the other for a thug, celebrating his wedding after having been pardoned by Sisi, can summarize the situation in Egypt under the rule of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The whole situation in Egypt under the rule of General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi can be summarized in these two photos: the first photo is for Dr. Laila Suef, a math professor at Cairo University, lying on the bare ground in front of a prison gate, after authorities rejected her appeal to send drugs to her detained son, the well-known political and human rights activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. The second photo is for the bully Sabri Nakhnoukh while celebrating his wedding among his relatives and beloved ones. Nakhnoukh had been sentenced to 28 years in prison on charges of bullying and drug trafficking before he was granted a presidential pardon by Sisi in May 2018.
The First Picture:
The above picture is for Dr. Laila Suef, a professor of mathematics at Cairo University, lying on the ground in front of Tora Prison. Dr. Suef’s only request was to allow her to visit her son, the well-known political and human rights activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, or send medicine to him, but the prison administration rejected her request, but she is still waiting outside the prison gates. However, she was so tired and prompted to lie on the ground receiving no response from the Prison Administration.
Wide-range sympathy was raised by the photo of Dr. Suef while lying on the ground, awaiting his visit and any opportunity to reassure him, especially after he entered his thirtieth day of hunger strike, to protest his remand and denying his right to visitation. The family released the photo of Alaa’s mother in front of the Tora Prison, appealing to the public prosecutor to intervene to enable the family to visit and allow entering necessary medicines to him.
Tweeters demanded the release of Alaa who is on his thirtieth day of hunger strike in protest against his continued detention more than 45 days after the date of his last renewal session.
Security forces arrested Alaa on September 29, as part of a campaign of arrests after a limited wave of rare protests in different parts of the country.
At the time of his arrest, Alaa was carrying out the daily monitoring penalty in the police station, where he previously spent five years in prison after being convicted of violating the 2014 protest law in the media-known case “Shura Council Events.”
Is it normal in Egypt to stay hours and days at the prison gates waiting for allowing visits to prisoners.
The Second Picture:
The second photo is for the well-known thug Sabri Nakhnoukh who received a presidential pardon in May 2018, as he had been sentenced to 28 years in prison on charges of bullying and drug trafficking. But now, his photo while celebrating his wedding among his relatives and friends are circulated widespread in newspapers and websites to announce his wedding!!
Late May, according to the Egyptian official gazette, Mubarak era’s gangster and leading thug Sabry Nakhnoukh was granted a presidential pardon!!
Selfies and photos showing Nakhnouk with his friends and family at his villa in Alexandria then went viral online.
Born in 1963, Sabry Nakhnoukh became a household name when he admitted to facilitating large-scale vote rigging in favor of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party in 2011.
In May 2013, the lord of thuggery in Egypt was sentenced to 28 years in prison on a number of charges, including bullying and drug trafficking.
In August 2012, Nakhnoukh was arrested from his villa in Alexandria’s upscale King Mariott district for unlicensed possession of weapons and illegal ownership of predatory animals, including tigers and lions which he kept in the garden of his home.
In September 2012, he was referred to criminal court for illegal weapons possession, drug abuse and other charges and was sentenced to 28 years in jail in May 2013.
In November 2014, Egypt’s cassation court upheld the sentence.
But in February 2016, Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court struck down Law No. 6 of 2012 under which Nakhnoukh was sentenced.
Nakhnoukh’s lawyers then appealed against the cassation court’s 2014 verdict before the Supreme Constitutional Court.
In April 2018, the prosecutor general referred Nakhnoukh’s case once again to Alexandria’s criminal court.
In May 2018, General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the military coup leader who ousted Egypt’s elected president, pardoned Nakhnoukh.
With that pardon, all the legal procedures taken against Nakhnoukh are considered void. Though he will be free from jail, the pardon also does not expunge the record of his conviction.
Now the question is: How did a man like that find his way to the presidential pardon list?
Nakhnoukh had been charged with thuggery, possession of weapons and drugs, facilitating prostitution, and impersonating a judicial official after they found an identity card for an official bearing Nakhnoukh’s image in his villa.
Nakhnoukh’s lawyer Gameel Asaad did not provide a logic legal explanation on why his client was included in that pardon. However, Asaad claimed that Sabry Nakhnoukh served half his prison term so he could be pardoned, which is a big lie!! In fact, Nakhnoukh was sentenced to 28 years in jail already!!
