Tag: prisons

The Innocent

Posted on By 3arabawy

Here’s a Egyptian classic film you should try to get hold of its uncensored copy.

I found online, via Torture In Egypt Blog, the uncensored finale of Ahmad Zaki‘s 1986 movie “Al-Bare’e” (The Innocent), where he plays the role of a naive peasant police conscript, brainwashed to torture dissidents in prison by the sadist prison sheriff (played by Mahmoud Abdel Aziz), as “enemies of the nation” or “spies” or whatever.

Our innocent conscript however gets disillusioned when one day a young fellow from his village shows up among a new patch of student detainees sent to the torture factory.. Zaki spontaneously tries to protect the young man (played by Mamdouh Abdel Alim) from the “welcome party” arranged for the detainees in prison, while screaming he knew the detainee and that he could not have been a “traitor” or a bad guy.. Zaki ends up in trouble, while the young detainee dies.

The final part of the movie was censored by the government, though bootlegged copies were always in circulation, depicting Zaki, released from confinement and back on the job, climbs up the tower, spots a new group of detainees being shipped in, so he decides to shoot the sheriff and the soldiers.

The official version of the film, which the government allowed, only showed Zaki screaming “No” and then the screen freezes. The uncensored edition however was shown public only once in 2005 when the Minister of Culture decided to honor Zaki’s memory during the Cairo Film Festival.

Enjoy!

11 days passed without ordering investigation into the torture of imprisoned blogger

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received the following statement from imprisoned Alexandrian blogger Kareem Amer’s lawyers:

Eleven days passed since a communiqué was sent to the Prosecutor-General about the torturing of blogger Karim Amer in Borg Alarab prison without ordering an investigation, a matter that raises concerns and doubts about justice and leaves the door open for impunity from punishment in Egypt, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said today.
This press release came after the lawyers of the Arabic Network paid Karim a visit in Borg Alarab prison as they found out that there was no investigation started regarding their communique which was sent to the Prosecutor-General on November 14, they also noticed the healing of the torture related-injuries yet the broken teeth Karim lost demonstrates full-blown evidence of the torture he went through.
The Arabic Network’s lawyers examined by themselves the abrasions on Karim’s neck and his” broken teeth”, they also saw one of the police elements involved in torturing Karim; He was strolling down happily with a smirk on his face implying a message that” Torture is our trade, the prosecutor-general protects us and Karim will stay under our teeth.”