Date: 22 September 2022
Head of the Journalists Syndicate Mr. Diaa Rashwan
4 Abdel Khaleq Tharwat Street, Downtown, Cairo
A request for the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate to take urgent action to release journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Radwan, aka Mohamed Oxygen, and to stop all violations against him.
Submitted by: The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) is a non-governmental organization. It has been registered in accordance with Egyptian law as a law firm since its establishment in 2006. It works on promoting and defending freedom of expression and freedom of information, based on the international charters and the Egyptian constitution. AFTE relies in its work on mechanisms of research, advocacy, monitoring, documentation and legal aid, targeting diverse groups of academics, students, journalists, innovators, politicians, legislators, and government officials.
Subject
Journalist and blogger Mohamed Oxygen is subjected to numerous violations, most of which can be described as grave, as a punishment for continuing his journalistic work – despite security restrictions and prosecutions – in covering events and relaying them on his personal blog, “Oxygen Egypt”.
Violations against Oxygen included arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, physical assault, illegal detention, recycling into new cases from inside his prison, detention in connection with more than one case at the same time, in addition to the four-year prison sentence issued against him.
Oxygen was arrested for the second time on 21 September 2019, while implementing precautionary measures at Al-Basateen police station after his detention in Case No. 621 of 2018 was replaced by precautionary measures by a decision by the Terrorism Circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court. He remained under enforced disappearance for 18 days until he appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution on 8 October 2019, in connection with Case No. 1356 of 2019 (State Security). The prosecution charged him with spreading false news that would harm the country, and joining a banned group, the same charges he faced in the first case. After spending 14 months in pretrial detention, Oxygen was released on 3 November 2020 under precautionary measures. The Ministry of Interior refused to implement the decision to release him, and he was “recycled from inside his prison” into Case No. 855 of 2020, to prevent him from being released.
On 20 December 2021, the Emergency State Security Misdemeanors Court sentenced Oxygen to four years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of 200,000 pounds, in Case No. 1228 of 2021 (Emergency State Security). This judgment is final and not subject to appeal.
In the context of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s call in late last April for a comprehensive national dialogue, and his decision to reactivate the presidential pardon committee – which cannot be serious without releasing all journalists imprisoned in connection with publication and expression cases – AFTE calls on the Journalists Syndicate’s Council and Mr. Diaa Rashwan, the General Coordinator of the National Dialogue, to take action to guarantee Oxygen’s freedom as soon as possible. This comes after the young journalist attempted to commit suicide inside his cell in Maximum Security Prison 2, in the Tora prison complex, which means that his health condition is in grave danger, with his psychological condition continuing to deteriorate after his refusal to leave the prison to receive condolences over his mother’s death.
AFTE also calls on the Journalists Syndicate to play its role and assume its responsibilities in ensuring the right of every journalist to work freely without arbitrary restrictions or threats to their physical or psychological safety.
The Egyptian constitution provides in more than one article, including Articles 65, 70, and 71, for the protection of the right to freedom of expression in its various forms, as well as the right to freedom of publication and the practice of journalistic work. The constitution also affirms the impermissibility of imprisonment for crimes committed through publication and publicity, especially those related to freedom of expression.
Therefore, AFTE calls on Mr. Rashwan and members of the Syndicate’s Council to intervene quickly and use all the powers granted to them in order to release Oxygen immediately under the presidential pardon decisions that are being prepared by the presidential pardon committee. It further calls for stopping all forms of violations against Oxygen inside his prison, such as denial of visitation, denial of exercise, ill-treatment and medical negligence.
