An Irish teenager held in the same prison cell as Peter Greste will appear in court on Sunday (8th) in a mass trial of nearly 500 prisoners facing potential execution.
Ibrahim Halawa, from Dublin, was 17 and on holiday in August 2013 when he was caught up in Egypt’s sweeping military crackdown on protests. Now 19, he is in prison in Cairo awaiting trial as an adult alongside 493 other prisoners, on largely identical charges relating to the protests.
Mr Halawa had been sharing a cell in Tora prison with Mr Greste before the Al Jazeera journalist was freed this week. Repeatedly abused during his 2-year detention, he has reportedly been told by prison guards that he will be executed, and that his “European passport” will not save him.
Previous hearings in Mr Halawa’s mass trial have been postponed amid chaotic scenes in the courtroom.
Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, which is assisting Mr Halawa, said: “This mass trial shows that there can be no illusions about Egypt’s continued crackdown, despite the release of Peter Greste last week. The attempt to try at once nearly 500 people, including minors, on identical capital charges makes a mockery of justice – as does the sentencing to death of 183 people one day after Mr Greste’s release. If the Sisi government is serious about reversing the injustices of the last two years, it must halt these trials, and release Ibrahim Halawa and the many hundreds like him.”
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
