clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

“I don’t breath fresh air,” Mahmoud Ezzat reveals prison violations

December 25, 2021 at 7:35 pm

Mahmud Ezzat, acting leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood society, sits mask-clad due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as he attends a trial session at the make-shift courtroom at the Torah Police Institute on the southern outskirts of Egypt’s capital Cairo on February 3, 2021. [KHALED KAMEL/AFP via Getty Images]

A leaked video of the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, from his trial session, has circulated on social media, revealing the tragic conditions he is subjected to in prison.

In the leaked video, the 77-year-old Ezzat told the judge: “Throughout this period, the cell only opens for a few seconds. Food is delivered to me, and then I do not smell the air. I have been solitary confinement for 16 months.”

He revealed that he did not meet attorneys, he did not know whether they attended or not, and who they are to inform them of what he has to say so that they, in turn, inform the court.

He pointed out that “sometimes food is thrown at me from a hole at the top of the door, and I can only move or breathe air through these walls, which are the size of the cell.”

He added that his eyes were closed all the time when he was on his way to court, adding that he could not complete a minute in reading the statement of charges that were brought against him.

The Egyptian authorities arrested Ezzat on 28 August, 2020, and his sentence to life imprisonment was confirmed last Sunday on charges of communication with Hamas.

For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood called on the Egyptian authorities to provide all rights to its deputy guide Ezzat.

The Muslim Brotherhood said in its statement: “In the video circulated on social media, Mahmoud Ezzat explains to the judge the deprivation of all his legal and life rights.”

In the summer of 2015, Ezzat was sentenced to death by hanging in the same case. After his arrest in August 2020, the judiciary decided to prosecute him again, so the sentence was reduced from execution to life imprisonment in last Sunday’s session.

READ: The internal exile of Egyptian detainees