In Egypt, a judicial source announces the imminent release of political activist Ramy Shaath, imprisoned for two and a half years without trial.
According to our information, Ramy Shaath was to take a seat on a plane taking him to France in the next few hours. The activist is indeed married to a French citizen who had also been expelled from Egypt in July 2019, at the time of the arrest.
Ramy Shaath is 50 years old. From a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, he lived in both countries, and campaigned for change and democracy in Egypt, before and after the revolution of 2011, in the turmoil of the politics of this country, while remaining committed for the Palestinian cause, calling for a boycott of Israel. His father had been a senior leader of the Palestinian Authority.
Commitments that lead to prison, in the Egypt of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, where all opposition is repressed. Ramy Shaath spent two and a half years in preventive detention, without trial and without his lawyers being able to access a file mentioning charges ” assistance to a terrorist group ” and of “ spreading fake news “.
His case is particularly followed by the French authorities. The name of this activist was even mentioned by Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in December 2020, when he received his Egyptian counterpart on a state visit.
Ramy Shaath was arrested at his Cairo home in July 2019, then held in a 25 square meter cell, along with around 15 other prisoners. For two and a half years, his wife and human rights organizations have been asking for his release, the French authorities ensuring that they are working in this direction.
►Reread: Céline Lebrun-Shaath on RFI: “My husband is in a legal void”