By Heba Afify
CAIRO: Five days after the general prosecutor dropped the drug and knife possession charges against him and ordered his release, Al-Badeel journalist Youssef Shaaban was freed after spending 10 days in incarceration.
In an interview with Daily News Egypt, Shaaban recounted the tough conditions of his incarceration and the lack of information provided to him and his lawyers throughout the 10 days.
Shaaban said that even though he expected to be opposed by the regime for his political and journalistic work, the criminal nature of the charges pinned on him represents a new and alarming trend.
“We expect to be handed down charges relating to our political work, but pinning criminal charges on journalists is a new development and who knows what it will lead to,” said Shaaban.
Shaaban recalled the start of his ordeal when police cars cut him off on his way to cover a protest in the Abo Suleiman Area in Alexandria on Friday, Nov. 19 and took him to the chief investigator in Alexandria, Khaled Shalaby.
“I told him that I was there to cover the protest and that I can go home if it’s cancelled, he told me that I won’t be going home today, took all my belongings, threw my press card and my national ID card on the floor and told me I will teach you not to protest again,” he recounted.
Shaaban said that, after the officers gave him “the usual beating that won’t leave a mark,” he was taken to the police station blindfolded and spent the night there in handcuffs.
Shaaban wasn’t aware of the drug and knife possession charges pressed against him until the next morning in the prosecutor’s office.
“They took the blindfolds off and I found myself in the prosecutor’s office, they got me in from a back door and prevented any communication between me and my lawyers, they refused to let me make a phone call.”
Shaaban, who was arrested five times before on political charges and has no criminal record, was shocked when the prosecutor showed him the drugs and knife and asked him if they were his.
“I wanted to laugh, I didn’t expect this at all, it was like something out of a movie,” said Shaaban.
Shaaban says that the prosecution didn’t inform him or his lawyers of its decision to put him in police custody for four days until after he was transported back to the police station, which is a first according to him.
Human rights activists and journalists protested and condemned Shaaban’s arrest, but this is not the picture that was conveyed to him by police during the first four days of his incarceration.
“They were telling me that no one knew where I was, and I wasn’t aware of all the protests that were happening for me.”
Shaaban explained that, because he was facing criminal charges, he was put in a cell with 40 criminal inmates who were instructed to keep him from getting any rest. He also didn’t receive any of the food, clothes or money that his family was sending him.
Shaaban believes that the tough circumstances of his incarceration were designed by the police to pin the charges on him.
“They were wearing me out on purpose so that when I meet with the judge after four days, I would look and speak like a drug addict because of exhaustion,” he said.
After meeting with the judge on Tuesday, Shaaban was wrongly informed for the second time that he will be released. As he sat in the office expecting his lawyers to come and get him, an officer took him and refused to answer his questions.
“I found myself in front of a [police] car and he told me that I was sentenced to 15 more days in prison.”
Shaaban was told by another detainee that the car was heading for Borg Al-Arab prison.
An officer in Borg Al-Arab prison shaved Shaaban’s head. He recalled that chief investigator Shalaby had threatened him and told him “Is your hair still long? I’m going to shave it for you.”
“The police do these little things to political activists thinking that it will hurt our pride but it doesn’t affect us,” said Shaaban.
Shaaban says he was put in solitary confinement during his incarceration in Borg Al-Arab, and that he was denied access to any reading or writing material. The other inmates were instructed not to talk to him, Shaaban said.
He was also denied the right to daily breaks that all the other inmates get and was even forbidden from performing Friday prayers with the other inmates.
Officers informed Shaaban that there were instructions from state security to keep him isolated.
Mohamed Abdel Aziz, lawyer from El-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence said that shaving Shaaban’s head and putting him in solitary confinement are illegal and unjustified.
“He was treated as an inmate while he was only there under investigation, which breaks the criminal procedures law,” said Abdel Aziz.
The general prosecutor issued a decision to drop the charges against Shaaban for lack of evidence last Thursday and ordered his release.
Shaaban’s lawyers and colleagues protested the prosecution’s stalling in his release procedures, which kept him incarcerated five more days until he was finally freed on Monday.
Shaaban wasn’t aware of the Prosecutor General’s decision to release him until Saturday when police informed him of the decision and transported him back to the police station.
“I didn’t believe the officer when he told me that I will be released because I was told that many times before and it wasn’t true.”
When the prosecution delayed Shaaban’s release saying that the officer who has to sign his release papers was not available, Shaaban’s lawyers went on a hunger strike on Saturday, concerned that an emergency law detention is underway.
Meanwhile, Shaaban was put back in a cell which he described as “even worse than the first one” awaiting his release.
Officers kept informing Shaaban of his release time and postponing it claiming that his papers were not finished until Monday at 6 am when an officer removed his handcuffs and told him “Don’t you know the way to your house? Go home.”
Shaaban said he was in disbelief about his release and expected to be apprehended by state security as soon as he walks out of the police station, or to find thugs instructed to pick a fight with him so that he would be arrested again.
“I ran from the door of the police station to the taxi and went straight home, I called my lawyers and even they couldn’t believe that I was released.”
Shaaban and his lawyer Ahmed Mamdouh both attribute his release to the activists who supported him and believe that if it weren’t for their efforts he would have been detained under the emergency law.
Abdel Aziz said that the treatment Shaaban received during his incarceration is a continuation of the government’s terrorization of activists, which starts with arrest and pinning false charges, and continues with unjustified solitary confinement and deprivation from food and contact with family.
Shaaban said that what happened to him was expected under the Egyptian regime that will do anything to protect its power.
“I am not the first nor will I be the last one that this will happen to, I was lucky enough to be released in 10 days, some people spend years in prison and no one knows anything about them,” Shaaban said.
Shaaban said that he will get back to work this week and will continue to deliver news to the public in the way that satisfies his conscience.
“They think that when they put people in prison, they change them, but that’s not true, if you lock a pigeon up for even 10 years, it will not become something else, it might stumble a little bit after its release but it will fly again.”
