‘We made it’: Ramy Shaath arrives in France after being released from Egypt | Abdel Fattah el-Sisi News

Egyptian and Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath has arrived in France after more than 900 days in Egyptian prisons.

Shaath, who co-founded Egypt’s pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions group, arrived in the French capital, Paris, on Saturday.

His family says that Egyptian authorities forced him to do so to leave his land of Egypt as a symbol of liberation.

Shaath exited Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with his French wife, Celine Lebrun, on Saturday to cheer and shout “Welcome!”

“We have succeeded!” the freedman said.

“It’s very difficult, I’m glad to be here,” he told reporters.

“I have been in the last two and a half years between several prisons, a few isolated places, some secretly, some of them, some of them are very cruel people, in a very difficult life,” he said.

“I still have all my determination, and my determination to keep going,” he said, ordering “” “friends and acquaintances”Is still a prisoner in Egypt.

“I am advocating for human rights in Egypt. I insist on a free Palestine, I insist that this will continue and they will not stop us.”

Introduction by Ramy Shaath with his wife @CelineLST, they finally met again after 30 months of separation.#RamyNdiulere pic.twitter.com/CTWcCbxwDl

– Amnesty International France (@amnestyfrance) January 8, 2022

The 48-year-old is the son of former Palestinian politician Nabil Shaath and was arrested in Egypt in June 2019 on charges of supporting a “terrorist group”.

His arrest came between a continue to destroy on political dissent under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Shaath was released Thursday evening.

Egyptian authorities later handed him over to a representative of the Palestinian Authority at Cairo airport, where he boarded a flight to Amman, the capital of Jordan, before departing for Paris.

‘Good results’

His family said in a statement that they were “deeply moved” by his release after 900 days of “unlawful closure” by the Egyptians.

But “we regret that he forced Ramy to cease Egyptian citizenship as an aid to his release which should have been unlimited after two and a half years of unjust imprisonment”.

“No one should choose between freedom and citizenship,” they said.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter welcomed Egypt’s decision to release Shaath.

He wrote: “I agree with his wife.

“Thank you to everyone who has taken action on this positive outcome.”

In December, five human rights groups called on Macron to force Egypt to release Shaath.

Macron had previously said he had brought charges against Shaath and el-Sisi, but said at the time that human rights could not be the economic and military culture of Egypt.

Ramy Kamel was also released

On Saturday, the family of Ramy Kamel, a Coptic activist who spent more than two years in Egyptian prisons, announced his release.

“Rami is part of her family … happy time!” his sister Bossi Kamel wrote on Facebook.

Coptic activist Ramy Kamel was released on Saturday after a State Security Prosecution after serving two years in prison on terrorism charges, attorney Hoda Nasrallah told Mada Masr. pic.twitter.com/u9H0xe0Zy4

– Mada Masr Mada Masr (@MadaMasr) January 8, 2022

Kamel is a founding member of the Maspero Youth Union, a Coptic civil society movement born after the 2011 protests.

He was accused of joining a “terrorist group”, receiving foreign exchange and spreading false information.

But in a November 2021 report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stated that its arrest “may have implied that efforts to suppress the rights of Egyptian minors at the United Nations General Assembly in Geneva days later several arrested “.

Egypt’s opposition position has been limited since El-Sisi took office in 2014.

Civil society groups say Egypt is holding 60,000 political prisoners, many of them facing violence and overcrowded cells.

Egypt ranks low on the Global Public Policy Institute’s Academic Freedom Index.