An initiative from inside Egypt's prisons: freezing political conflicts to confront the epidemic

A new distress coming out of Egypt's prisons tells of the painful conditions in the shadow of the Corona epidemic, and offers an initiative to stop the political conflict and unite all official and popular efforts to confront the crisis that does not differentiate between a supporter or opponent, nor between a prisoner, an officer or a judge.

The distress came through a message called "An appeal from the edge of the pandemic" published by the page "The Egyptian Position", and said that it was sent to several media platforms by Egyptian prisoners from different directions who chose to gather under the name "Egyptian Prisoner Forum".

The letter says that the Corona pandemic reached the prisons, as it did not differentiate between a guard and a prisoner, entered the cells and did not differentiate between a criminal or political prisoner, and stormed the detention centers, but did not differentiate between an Islamist and a secular.

She added that the Corona pandemic came "to prove the ripeness of our conflicts and the humility of our struggles before the divine will, our lack of tricks and the weakness of our opponents before the power of nature, and to remind us that protecting the lives of all is a necessity that can only be reached through solidarity and solidarity."

The authors of the message said that they direct their speech to "all the rational people of Egyptian society (and they, God willing, are the majority) as we direct it to all its active forces, either we can survive together, or we lose together irreparable and unlimited losses."

After confirming that the safety of the prisoner is a necessity for the safety of Ibn al-Qadi, and the safety of the detainee is necessary for the safety of the officer and his family, the Egyptian Prisoner Forum stressed that this initiative aims to reach an open political and humanitarian truce in which all political conflicts and disputes are frozen in order to devote themselves to facing the pandemic, expressing his hope that All the forces, currents, parties, and movements that express the entire Egyptian political spectrum (most of which are represented in prisons and headquarters) are seriously interacting with this initiative.

The Egyptian Prisoner Forum also appealed to "all sane people in the institutions of the Egyptian state to deal positively with this initiative to stop security management and to put aside repressive solutions and replace them with collective management and scientific solutions."

According to the message, their owners suggested forming a crisis management cell formed by the armed forces, the Medical Association and the National Council for Human Rights, with international support from the Red Crescent and Red Cross and the World Health Organization. This cell manages and mobilizes all efforts and resources of Egyptian society and releases the potential energy in it to save the future and confront the pandemic.

The Egyptian Prisoners Forum called on the wise men and elders of the judiciary to join this initiative to work to release all experiences and energies locked up in prisons and exile abroad from doctors, nurses and volunteers, and to look with mercy to mothers, patients and the elderly whose lives are threatened in prisons because of the political crisis and the reunification of resources and efforts wasted in the arenas Litigation, subsistence and care for prisoners, detainees and their families.

Finally, the Egyptian Prisoner Forum stressed the necessity of ending the accumulation in prisons through the widespread and comprehensive use of amnesty tools, conditional and health release and powers to stop the enforcement of sentences and evictions as necessary measures to protect the whole society, and as a matter of first priority the complete evacuation of illegal detention facilities similar to all countries that were able to control On the spread of the epidemic.