On 26 June Egypt's Emergency State Security Criminal Court (ESSC) sentenced protester Mahmoud Hussein to three years in prison for wearing an anti-torture T-Shirt. He was arrested following the court session and taken into custody to serve the remainder of his sentence after he had already spent two years and 10 months in pretrial detention. Responding to the news, Sara Hashash, Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:
"Mahmoud Hussein's conviction is a travesty of justice that illustrates how Egypt's criminal justice system is being used as a tool to punish dissent and intimidate peaceful activists into silence.
"It is ludicrous that he has been given a three-year prison term simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression by wearing an anti-torture T-shirt. In a grim irony the sentence was handed down on 26 June, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
It is ludicrous that he has been given a three-year prison term simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression by wearing an anti-torture T-shirt.Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for MENA
"Proceedings before the Emergency State Security Court (ESSC) are inherently unfair including because its verdicts are not subject to appeal, only ratification by the President. Egyptian authorities must end this farce by quashing Mahmoud Hussein's conviction and releasing him immediately and unconditionally.
"Mahmoud Hussein should never have faced arrest, yet he was unjustly detained twice first in 2014 and then again in August 2023 and spent a total of 34 months in arbitrary detention in squalid conditions, taking a heavy toll on his mental and physical health. Instead of sending him back to prison, the Egyptian authorities must investigate his complaints of torture and other ill-treatment and provide him access to a remedy for the harm suffered during his unjust detention."
Background
On 25 January 2014, Egyptian authorities arrested Mahmoud Hussein in the aftermath of peaceful protests marking the third anniversary of the 25 January 2011 Revolution for wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "A Nation without Torture" and a scarf with the "25 January Revolution" logo. He then spent two years in arbitrary pretrial detention before being released on bail in 2016, following global campaigning for his release. In 2018 however, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence.
During detention, National Security Agency ( NSA) agents allegedly subjected him to torture and other ill-treatment through beatings and electric shocks to his hands, back and testicles to force him to sign a "confession".
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He was re-arrested in August 2023 and subjected to enforced disappearance for five days. He was held in pre-trial detention pending his retrial on bogus charges of membership of a "terrorist group" stemming from his peaceful activism until a judge ordered his release on 23 April 2024. The authorities released Mahmoud only on 26 May 2024, detaining him for about a further 33 days.
Mahmoud Hussein is among thousands of individuals who continue to be arbitrarily detained in Egypt solely for exercising their human rights, without legal basis or following proceedings violating fair trial rights.
