‘This regime is more violent than Mubarak. There is no opposition now’
by Jeffrey PhillipsOf all the freedoms Egyptians thought they had won with the Tahrir
Square Revolution, the one they thought irreversible was the right to
demonstrate.
Hundreds of young protesters were killed during the
uprising against Hosni Mubarak that began exactly five years ago on
Monday. The “Angry Youth” stirred the hearts of the world as they
marched, prayed and sang their way to overthrowing 30 years of President
Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship.
The family of Mahmoud Mohammed
Hussein might beg to differ. Mahmoud was just 18 when he was arrested on
the revolution’s anniversary two years ago, after attending a
commemorative event in a tee-shirt with the seemingly uncontroversial
logo “A Homeland without Torture”.
Not that there is any real
certainty about why he was seized. In those two years, he has been moved
from jail to jail without ever being charged or being brought before a
court.
“Mahmoud is growing up in prison,” his brother, Tareq, told
The Sunday Telegraph last week. He said his sibling was starting to
think he had been forgotten, but tried to remain positive.
“‘Mahmoud
told us in a letter: ‘don’t wake up a prisoner because his dreams are
of freedom,” Tareq revealed. He added that one of the jails in which his
younger brother had served time was that set aside for men on death
row.
“Imagine the psychological damage for a young man when he goes through all this.”
