A Cry for Help from Inside Badr Prison

Amid the escalating suffering of detainees and their families in Egyptian prisons, the Al‑Shehab Human Rights Center received a message from inside Badr Prison. It carries the plea of a number of prisoners about the long years of detention and the human and familial suffering it has left behind, calling for the closure of this file before it is too late.

A message from Badr

From Egypt’s prisons to the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El‑Sisi

How long?

This is a message to you directly, without intermediaries, so that it is not exploited by anyone for personal ambitions or purposes—so that rights are not lost.

This wave that has formed today in all Egyptian prisons, in all its forms, reflects the depth of our grief and pain, and the loss of hope that has surrounded us and our families. If we waited longer, we would find even more sacrifices and pains that we want to convey to you.

Death has become easier for us than the continuation of this endless tragedy.

It has become customary in all countries where internal disputes arise to take measures to reconcile those disputes, such as decisions of amnesty and community reconciliation.

Years have passed—full of grief and pain—and we have been waiting for your political, security, and legal solutions, so that we may see the light of the sun again, and return to our fathers and mothers, our wives, and our children.

But all you did was shatter our dreams and hopes for freedom with your decision to postpone the Criminal Procedures Law year after year.

Do we know how many of us will lose a father, or a mother, or a wife during this year—whether due to the circumstances of life or on the roads that lead to death and to prisons?

And remains the question that occupies everyone’s minds and kills their hopes for freedom:

How long will lives be wasted in vain? How long will we be absent from our children, until a child sees his father and no longer recognizes him? How long will our case continue to be handled in this manner of delay and disregard—which has resulted, over the course of 13 years, in the suffering we and our families have endured?

This file has taken far more than its due time. Every country reconciles and agrees in the end—so how can the sons of one homeland not unite? Aren’t they more deserving of unity for this homeland?

For the girls, women, and sick people in prisons, we do not want to be victims of disputes, demands, and bargaining. Rather, we want our suffering—and the suffering of our families—to be viewed with human compassion.

This uprising is nothing but a wounded cry—one that has consumed lives, families, and money.

It is nothing but: “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those with him are severe against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating, seeking bounty from Allah and His approval. Their mark is on their faces from the trace of prostration.”

That is their example in the Torah as well.

We call for this file to be addressed urgently and for it not to be postponed any longer before it is too late.

As for us, because of your decision, all paths have been blocked and all doors have been shut. We have nothing left to lose, after we have lost the flower of our lives, our families have been scattered, and our children have been lost.

Either we live a dignified life, or Allah will judge between us—He is the best of judges.

And to Allah we shall return.

#Release_the_Detainees

#Enough_of_Injustice

#Al‑Shehab_Human_Rights_Center