Rachel Greenspan reports from the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, where industry and activists met to discuss free expression online
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This account of censorship by F el-Manssoury, published in Index on Censorship magazine in 1981 in Libya is based on first-hand knowledge of the early years of President Gaddafi’s regime
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Sahar Maher, human rights activist and a member of the Free Maikel campaign, has told Index that authorities are transferring Maikel Nabil to a “mental hospital”, where he would be “put under watch for 45 days to make sure his mental situation is OK”. Nabil, who was handed a three-year prison sentence for criticising the practice of trying civilians in military courts, was scheduled to have a re-trial today, but is refusing to stand trial. Family members fear that Nabil, who has been on hunger strike for 57 days, will die while imprisoned. On 17 October, Nabil made a statement from El-Marg prison on his reasons for refusing to attend his trial:
I also felt great insult from the insistence of my lawyers to ignore my willingness in boycotting the military judiciary, and their insistence to impose a guardianship on me and to litigate before the military judiciary without my knowledge and against my will. That’s why I announce that I won’t attend tomorrow’s session, and that no lawyer represents me before the military judiciary. May the militarists go to hell with their ugly theatrical play, I don’t beg for my freedom from a group of killers and homeland stealers.
Maher said that she supports Nabil’s decision, and added that “the judges don’t care about how people feel or what people do.” Maher, who is pessimistic about Nabil’s future, saw him yesterday and described him as looking “very ill and very weak”. Since Nabil’s lawyers did not attend court, Maher said that the court “commissioned another lawyer from the military court itself”, and that the lawyer asked that Nabil be moved to a mental hospital, and the court accepted the suggestion. Now that Nabil may be transferred to the hospital, Maher is worried that he will be kept in the hospital, and that he will be in captivity indefinitely.
Maher, who was arrested earlier this month while demonstrating for Nabil’s release, mentioned that she has faced a series of threats for speaking out against military trials and the treatment of Nabil, much like his father and brother. In his statement, Nabil condemned the threats against Maher and his family members:
I was saddened for the militarists’ chasing of the leaderships of the movement and especially my sister and my colleague Sahar Maher and threatening them with death, imprisonment and attempting to recruit them to the Intelligence as the militarists attempted with me and fail continually.
Maher said that “being threatened” is the least of her worries, and that she is more concerned with “what the country is going through.”
Maikel Nabil Sanad is today entering his 50th day of hunger strike. The Egyptian blogger has been abstaining from food since 23 August in protest of a three-year sentence handed to him by a military court on charges of “insulting the armed forces” and “spreading false news” in a blog post published last March.
Sanad had accused the Egyptian military of having conducted virginity tests on female protesters earlier that month — a charge that a senior military general later admitted was true. He had been handed the sentence after being tried in a martial court where, according to his younger brother Mark, “eyewitnesses were barred from testifying in the case.”
Maikel Nabil Sanad in Tahrir Square, Cairo on 30 January. Photo uploaded by Mena Nader on Yfrog
Journalist Shahira Amin visited him at the start of October, when he weighed 48 kilograms after having shed 12 kilograms since the start of his strike. “I’d rather die than live as a slave without dignity under an oppressive regime,” he explained to her.
Amin added that Sanad’s family fears he may not survive until his appeal hearing scheduled for today. The hearing had originally been set to take place on 4 October — the 43rd day of his hunger strike — but was adjourned until 11 October after a judge said that documents were “missing from the courtroom.”
Last week, the UK’s Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Alistair Burt, expressed concern about Sanad’s situation. In a statement Burt said,
We have raised concerns about Maikel Nabil Sanad’s treatment as well as the issue of trials of civilians in military courts and the continued State of Emergency with the Egyptian authorities. We continue to urge the Egyptian authorities to repeal the emergency law.
Freedom of expression, including freedom of the media, is fundamental to building a democratic society and we will continue to follow the human rights situation in Egypt closely.