I’ll be out with God’s Grace
After three months of detention in a police station, Mostafa, a pseudonym, was sent we to the Tora Reception Prison where he went through “The Honoring”, meaning he was beaten and insulted by prison officers and conscripts. That’s was his father says, at least. We could not verify these allegations.
At the beginning of his pre-trial detention in Tora for a political case in which he was accused of possessing explosives, and joining a group founded in contravention of the law and the constitution, Mostafa complained about the Islamic people around him.
A former political prisoner who sat for his final exams in Tora Prison said: "He was always looking for anyone from the non-Islamists". This prisoner who met Mostafa twice, said that the first time, "I was sitting for my first semester exams, and he was complaining about the large number of Islamists who took control of the place, and that everyone with him was either Brotherhood or Islamist. He had a phobia about them.”.He added that at their second meeting, "…I saw someone talking about Takfir of the Ministry of Interior and the Muslim Brotherhoods Group, and telling me that the solution is in ISIS."
In his early days in Tora, Mostafa found himself in a room with two men sentenced to death wearing red uniforms.
His father says that he was in a poor psychological state, and “asked me to visit him frequently, and try to move him from that room, as he was sitting in a 2x2 meters room, with just a nightlight, without ventilation, and he was accompanied by two men wearing the execution red uniform. He would tell me ‘I don’t see the sun, and I only know if it’s night or daylight at the visit time.’
Mixing pre-trial detainees with sentenced prisoners violates Article 11 of the Prisons Regulation Act, according to legal researcher Redha Mere’i.
“During the first three months in Tora, he began to speak about halal and haram (prohibited). He would tell me: “I don’t want to attend the trials. I don’t want lawyers.” After he got a sentence of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment, and before being transferred to El-Minya Prison, he started refusing cassation proceedings on the judgment. And when I asked him why, he said, ‘The people I’m staying with told me that if I were to get out it will be with God’s grace. I would be granted a presidential pardon like others who get out...’ "
The 19-year-old, who’d been arrested in demonstrations on June 30, 2013, and accused of possessing explosives, joining the Muslim Brotherhood and attacking police forces, changed from a volunteer in the presidential campaign of candidate Khalid Ali in 2012 into an aggressive malcontent complaining about life and society. He refused any involvement in his court proceedings, declaring the judges infidels and positive laws inadmissible, his father and his lawyer said
Major General Mohammad, the former assistant minister of interior for prisons, precluded the possibility of the ideologically extremist prisoners and those accused of joining ISIS mingling with other moderate-thinking prisoners. His reasoned that the Research Administration in each prison has the task of watching over prisoners and monitoring any changes in behavior that could signal extremism and radicalization. He said ideological radicals and religious extremists are isolated in the country’s prisons from other prisoners. He said rule-breakers are dealt with based on the law and a pre-established sanctions list that starts with banning visits and intensifies to solitary confinement, and deprivation of other privileges.
His father did not give up despite several failed attempts to get the teen to cooperate with a lawyer. What he did instead was talk his son into giving a power of attorney to an advocate in order to be transferred and win better living conditions. He brought Land Registry write in the purpose of document later. So far, however, the Court of Cassation has not set a date for an appeal hearing.
Mostafa became even more extremist after being sentenced. His father said, "He started speaking classical Arabic, and told me not to bring his mother for a visit because nobody should see her, and he refused to file an appeal against his sentence, claiming that it’s an act of blasphemy due to being based on… positive law, and that judicial decisions are politicized.”
A jihadi leader imprisoned for about a year in a case related to the “Coalition for the Support of Legitimacy" in Tora Maximum Security Prison 992 then released with precautionary measures, said that the ideological transformation to extremist of Brotherhood young men and their sympathizers is easier for than for other candidates.
Dr. Nageh Ibrahim, based on a long experience in the Egyptian prisons, meetings, and ideological reviews for years with jihadists’ and Takfirists’ explains how recruitment process happens in prison.
The process begins with presentation of ideas. The long empty hours, the lack of books and newspapers, conspire to allow for long discussions on everything. This reinforces the accused’s feelings or persecution and injustice. Opposing the regime makes him more susceptible to extremism.
Ibrahim says: "He comes to prison, lacking patience with the harsh life in prison, not knowing when it will end, and in addition feeling like he’s lost his future. So, he becomes isolated from the outside world, and psychologically oppressed. Thus, he believes that the state and society are unjust, and this makes for a fertile environment to be convinced of any Takfiri ideas that feed his desire for revenge and justice.”
"The long period of detention leads to hopelessness," says a former prisoner – call him Hassan – who spent two years in ’ pre-trial detention in Burj El-Arab Prison before being acquitted of demonstrating.
At the start of his detention, Burj El-Arab Prison was divided into three wards for political prisoners, of which two were for pre-trial detainees and one for those sentenced. He said that as the numbers of prisoners increased, administrators stopped separating the two classes. As he mentioned "I was with Salafi-jihadists, and Brotherhood. Each one tried to manage and impose its control and programs over the place."
Hassan explained how the extremists tried to attract young men, at first through discussions. The long period in prison and the despair of salvation at the end of imprisonment, leads to frustration, followed by a phase he called admiration.
The Brotherhood young men are attracted to the extremists because of what they see as their challenge to the prison administration. The extremists do not fear the disciplinary penalty and solitary confinement. As they say, “His body has hardened and he no longer cares.” This is opposite to what Hassan describes as “the subservience of the Brotherhood leaders to the prison administration, and trying to calm the situation in case of unrest.”
A study by the International Center for the Study of Radicalism (ICSR) based at the Department of War Studies at King's College London shows that most foreign jihadist fighters, are former criminals recruited while in prison.
Of 79 European jihadists analyzed -- all with a criminal past, around Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands the study found that 57 percent were in prison before becoming radicals, while at least 27 percent spent a prison sentence where they became extremists
In Burj El-Arab, according to Hassan, the activity of Sinai Province and the emergence of movements embracing violence against the state, such as Hasm and Agnad Misr’have stirred up the enthusiasm of many, and increased their conviction that "Salvation is attained by violence only.”
Hassan said that "The success of one of the prisoners in smuggling a device to run audio and video clips, full of videos of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s speeches, and terrorist attacks in Egypt such as the attack on the Karnak Temple in Luxor in 2015, and the bombing of an ambush at Karm El-Qawadees in northern Sinai, led to things getting out of control, and many young man joined them, pledging allegiance to ISIS. He added,"With the news about declaring the so-called Upper Egypt Province,some started thinking of the date ISIS supporters would break in the prison and release them."
Despite Mostafa's sixth year in prison, his father continues his attempts to obtain a presidential pardon, or a judicial decision to release his son, with many questions and more fears in his head: "I wish my son gets out and goes on with his life, but I’m afraid and don’t know how would he be like, what ideas would he have in his mind, and what would he do!".
Before Mostafa’s transform in Tora Reception Prison, he left the room he was staying in with his friends on the same case, and moved to a different ward with a group of ISIS prisoners. In the same way and the very same prison, another young man, we call ‘Ahmad’ transformed from supporting the Muslim Brotherhood to turning on them and joining ISIS.
