Latest news with #Douma
L'Orient-Le Jour
19 hours ago
- Politics
- L'Orient-Le Jour
Egypt charges ex-political prisoner with spreading fake news
Egyptian poet and former political prisoner Ahmed Douma was charged with spreading fake news on Tuesday, his lawyer told AFP, two years after he received a presidential pardon. Douma was summoned to the offices of state security prosecutors, where he was questioned for seven hours before being charged with "broadcasting false news within and outside the country," in reference to "four posts on X," his lawyer Nabeh Elgenadi told AFP. He was released on bail set at 50,000 Egyptian pounds or around $1,000. Elgenadi said the posts referred to included one in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and another criticising the sale of state assets. Fake news charges are frequently levelled against opposition figures. The poet had on Monday said in a post on X that this would be the fourth case brought against him in recent months, in addition to "dozens of complaints, smear campaigns (...) and threats to my fundamental rights since I was released from detention". After a decade behind bars, Douma was released in August 2023, part of a wave of high-profile pardons issued by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The poet, a prominent figure in Egypt's 2011 uprising, was arrested in the sweeping crackdown that followed the army's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi two years later. In 2022, Sisi reactivated a presidential pardoning committee, freeing hundreds of political prisoners in what was billed as a new start for Egypt's much-criticised human rights record. But rights groups say a widening crackdown since then has detained more people than those released and further curtailed the space for dissent. In April, when Douma was last summoned for questioning, Egyptian rights groups condemned what they said was a practice of summoning pardoned dissidents "with the aim of intimidating them and restricting their freedom of expression," according to a statement from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. According to Elgenadi, all of the cases against Douma "remain under investigation" with state security, which "has the right to close the cases, refer them to court or continue investigating". "It's impossible for anyone to be certain what will happen next," he continued. Rights groups say Egypt holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, many of them in brutal conditions.
LeMonde
23-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
'We, Russian political prisoners, have not lost our voice'
We, Russian political prisoners, address all foreign political leaders who are not indifferent to the suffering inflicted on some for their political beliefs. There are at least 10,000 of us: Russian political prisoners and Ukrainian civilians held hostage. We have one thing in common: We were punished for taking a civic stand. The word "justice" – whether referring to the judicial system or social justice – has lost all meaning in Russia, where anyone can end up behind bars simply for having the courage to think critically. Repressive laws, designed to eliminate all dissent, have been systematically strengthened since 2012. Between 2018 and 2022, more than 50 such laws were passed, with over 60 additional laws enacted since February 2022, when Russian troops began their attempted invasion of Ukraine. In political trials in Russia, defendants are never found not guilty. Sentences have become increasingly harsh – 10, 15, or even 20 years in prison no longer surprise anyone. Within the Douma [the lower house of the Russian parliament], there are frequent calls to reinstate the death penalty. Acts of torture Even before, the chances of receiving a fair trial in such cases were slim, but these avenues for appeal disappeared entirely in 2022, when Russia refused to comply with decisions from the European Court of Human Rights. In today's Russia, human rights institutions have been replaced by bodies that merely pretend to defend rights. As a result, the health and lives of detainees are under threat; acts of torture or violence against them are rarely investigated or prosecuted. Political prisoners are often held under stricter conditions than others, and are denied the possibility of requesting sentence reductions or improved detention conditions. A common tactic is to open a new case against a prisoner based on denunciation by another convicted person. Despite all this, we have not lost our voices and have not been forgotten. We maintain our civic positions, which we believe is important to state clearly. We call on both sides of the current negotiations – Russia and Ukraine – to immediately proceed with an exchange of military and civilian prisoners, following the "all for all" principle. This exchange must include Ukrainian civilian hostages.
