Berlin, June 30, 2024
The Law and Democracy Support Foundation (LDSF) condemns the ruling by the Supreme State Security Court (Emergency), sentencing political activist Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, 26, to three years in prison. Security forces re-arrested Mahmoud, known as the “T-shirt detainee,” in the courtroom, preparing to imprison him for the remaining two months following retrial procedures for case No. 37883 of 2017. Mahmoud had already spent two years and ten months in pre-trial detention.
On April 23, the Supreme State Security Court decided to release Mahmoud on bail of 10,000 EGP pending trial. Despite his family paying the bail on April 24, the Ministry of Interior unjustly detained him and did not execute the release order.
On May 20, Mahmoud’s lawyer attempted to visit him at the Khanka Police Station in Qalyubia Governorate, but the station chief denied his presence. After 33 days of unlawful detention and failure to execute the court’s release order, his lawyers and family were surprised by the implementation of the order.
Mahmoud was arrested on August 30, 2023, at a security checkpoint in Giza Governorate, enforcing an in absentia ruling issued on February 26, 2018, by the State Security Court, sentencing him to life imprisonment on charges of possessing explosives. He was forcibly disappeared for five days, during which he was held in various National Security locations and interrogated blindfolded without a lawyer.
Mahmoud suffers from severe health deterioration due to surgery performed in prison at Badr Prison and has difficulty moving because of two surgeries requiring complete rest, performed during his first detention in 2016.
He was first arrested in January 2014 during peaceful demonstrations commemorating the third anniversary of the January 25 Revolution for wearing a shirt that said “A Country Without Torture” and a scarf bearing the “January 25 Revolution” logo. At that time, he was 16 and was systematically tortured during his detention and enforced disappearance by National Security officers, including beatings and electric shocks, to force him to sign a confession. He spent two years in arbitrary pre-trial detention before being released on bail in 2016.
Karim Abdel-Rady, Executive Director of LDSF, stated: “The ruling by the exceptional Emergency State Security Court, which we have consistently demanded be stopped and all cases referred to the ordinary judiciary, is another episode in a long series of persecutions against him for peacefully expressing his opinion. It reveals a systematic and fierce desire by the Egyptian authorities not only to hold activists accountable for their opinions but also to retaliate against them, sending a message to all opinion holders and activists that critical opinions will not be tolerated.”
He added that despite the upcoming Universal Periodic Review for Egypt, the authorities continue to evade international obligations and suppress public freedoms, including the right to opinion and expression enshrined in the Egyptian constitution and international agreements signed by Egypt. They persist in using exceptional trials as a threat to democracy advocates. Instead, they should hold those accused of torture accountable, rather than retaliating against a youth for wearing a T-shirt with “A Country Without Torture.”
The Law and Democracy Support Foundation believes that the Egyptian President should exercise his powers under Article 55 of the Egyptian Constitution and pardon the remaining sentence of political activist Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, granting him immediate and unconditional release.
