Ibrahim speaks out from his prison cell as trial is delayed again

Ibrahim speaks out from his prison cell as trial is delayed again

By Brendan Grehan

FIRHOUSE MAN and Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa (20), who is awaiting trial in Egypt, has penned a touching speech from prison on the day he should have been graduating from college.

Mr Halawa has spent more than 1,140 days in jail in Cairo, where he has been subjected to continuous mental and physical torture.

Ibrahim Halawa October 2016

He is waiting on his sixteenth rescheduled trial to begin after the latest date for a trial was delayed again on Monday.

He was accused with 148 others for their alleged role in a violent protest in Cairo in 2013.

In his moving message, Ibrahim reflected on his time inside and how this should have been the year he graduated from college.

He wrote: “Today has finally come, my graduation day, the day I have longed for.The day my parents invested their whole lives in to see me reach.

“It’s the day when every graduate gets their hair done, I forcibly get my head shaved, while my rough white clothes are my uniform, my fellow graduates are dressed in their best outfits.

“Today, while every graduate throws their graduation hat in the sky to come down with the long waiting dream, I don’t see the sky because I’m enrolled in a different college.

“A college I did not know I had applied for when I chose to fight for freedom, a college that kidnapped me from life to teach me the principles of real life, a college full of lessons.

The Halawa family said: “Ibrahim’s letter leaves no room for more to be said, however it has been 35 days since the presidential decree of law 140 was submitted for Ibrahim. After three years of campaigning for Ibrahim’s freedom, this is our biggest hope to return him home soon.”

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