After two years of illegal detention, the Egyptian authorities extended the prison term of Alaa al-Qaradawi, the daughter of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, highlighting the most arbitrary and grim face of Egypt's prison system, according to a report by the Spanish newspaper Poblico.
"The family has no information about her mother at the moment, nor has she been able to communicate with her by any means, and nothing is known about her health," the report's author Marc Espanol quoted Ayat Hussam as saying.
The Egyptian authorities arrested Ola al-Qaradawi in 2017 with her husband during their celebration at the end of the holy month of Ramadan in the northern coast of Egypt. The couple were accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was listed by the Sisi on the terrorist list.
The author stated that the arrest of the couple raised a lot of controversy in Egyptian circles, where the authorities did not provide any evidence to justify the charges against them, nor allowed them to defend themselves in court.
The couple were arrested shortly after the crisis of the siege of Qatar, because of the support of the former Doha Muslim Brotherhood, according to the writer.
Espanyol believes that the authorities arrested Ola al-Qaradawi for "hostage" within the political conflict in Egypt, especially as she was the daughter of one of the most important symbols that opposed the policy of Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.
She spent the last two years of her incarceration in solitary confinement with a small cell that does not go out all day and does not enter the sun. One of her relatives confirmed that she was suffering from severe psychological stress, forced to follow a bad diet, and was often denied access to the prison restaurant.
"Since the military coup in 2013, the Sisi system has been using the laws of the judicial system as a major tool of repression, and the prison system in particular to punish opponents and deter potential dissidents," said Amy Houghton, vice president of research for the Middle East Democracy Project.
| The newspaper believes that most of the prisoners in Egypt belong to the Islamic (European) |
Strict restrictions
Espanyol asserts that the Egyptian authorities systematically follow systematic practices to intimidate opponents, including strict restrictions on visits, barring lawyers from providing defense to their clients, and relatives from providing food, medicines and other supplies to relatives in prisons.
The life of many prominent figures has ended in prisons, especially the prison of the notorious scorpion, specifically belonging to Islamic groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi jihadists, and other people not belonging to any group such as Hossam husband Ola al-Qaradawi.
Human Rights Watch researcher Amr Magdy said the practices of the Egyptian regime inside prisons show how contemptuous he is for human rights and his belief that everyone has no right to enjoy them.
Espanyol believes that the international community's negative response to systematic violations of human rights by the Sisi regime has facilitated the spread of repression in Egypt's prisons.