The coordinator in Egypt of the boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions, directed against Israel, had been arrested in July 2019 for assistance to “a terrorist group”. His fate has been mentioned several times by the French and Egyptian authorities.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
His liberation is a relief. The Palestino-Egyptian Militant Ramy Shaath, detained in Egypt since July 5, 2019, came out of an Egyptian prison on Saturday 7 January, confirmed his family in a statement. According to this same statement, Ramy Shaath was forced to give up his Egyptian nationality, and after more than nine hundred days of detention, is on their way to France.
48 years old, Ramy Shaath is a figure of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the coordinator in Egypt of the boycott movement, disinvestment, sanctions (BDS, advocating the boycott of Israel in the fight against the occupation of the Palestinian territories ) He had been detained for more than two years for wanted to foment “state disorders”.
Calls to put pressure on Egypt
His wife, Céline Lebrun Shaath, French nationality, who was expelled from Egypt after the arrest of her husband, asked the French government to pressure Cairo to get the release of her husband. In December, five human rights organizations had arrested the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, on the fate of this activist, son of the Palestinian political leader Nabil Shaath.
A year earlier, during a visit to Paris of Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, on December 7, 2020, Mr. Macron had struck with him with “individual cases”, including the one Ramy Shaath.
Mr. Shaath’s situation “is the subject of careful follow-up and is regularly addressed, including at the highest level,” said the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December, Anne-Claire Legendre .
Another Egyptian human rights activist, the researcher Patrick Zaki, was released in December after twenty-two months of detention, but he still incurs up to five years in prison for “false information” because of a Article denouncing discrimination against Christians.
Egypt has more than 60,000 opinion prisoners, according to NGOs. The United States estimates that the country violates human rights in all areas and have, consequently, frozen 10% of their help.