Ramy Kamel is still languishing in an Egyptian prison two years after his arrest, with no end to his imprisonment in sight.
Kamel’s detention was just extended by 45 days. The second extension this year.
Egyptian authorities arrested the human rights and religious freedom advocate in November 2019 on claims that he had allegedly joined a terror group, received foreign funding and was “misusing social media sites” by broadcasting “misinformation”.
Coptic Solidarity said the November 2021 extension violates:
The text of Law 143 of Criminal Procedures, the fourth paragraph, which sets the period of pretrial detention pending investigations with a maximum of two years.
The advocacy group based in the United States added that the extension was justified by authorities on the grounds of “pending investigations,” all of which ignore Kamel’s lengthy prison stay. Often involving a denial of Kamel’s rights, such as torture and solitary confinement.
Further information on Kamel’s arrest illustrates a story of shady behaviour from authorities within the Egyptian government.
The charges are vague, and there’s a significant lack of evidence.
In December 2020, I highlighted the convenient timing of Kamel’s arrest.
Kamel was taken the same month he was to appear before the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, to ‘testify on minority issues’ such as the systemic persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt by Islamists.
A February piece from Christianity Today on persecution spotted inconsistencies in government rhetoric and what was happening in communities.
CT noted that whist there have been breakthroughs for Egypt’s 1 million plus Christians on how the government upholds religious freedom, there are obvious areas in need of further improvement.
For instance, Kamel’s extended ‘pretrial confinement’ contradicts the goals of an Egyptian government looking to ‘lay the foundations for building a state of citizenship and national unity’ by allowing religious freedom.
To borrow from Christianity Today’s exposition, much of the latter has only been expressed in Egyptian authorities allowing Churches to be built in a nation with a Muslim majority.
Kamel’s imprisonment for allegedly “spreading false information” on social media, stands in direct contrast with the slap-on-the-wrist treatment of thugs who, in 2016, ‘stripped and dragged 74-year-old Coptic grandmother, Soad Thabet, naked through the street’ because of a rumour that her son was having an affair with a Muslim woman.
In the West, this second extension of Kamel’s unjust detention should resonate with those affected by COVID-19 lockdown and lockout rules.
The Egyptian government’s struggle with implementing and maintaining civil liberties for its citizens, testify to how hard these freedoms will be to get back, once lost.
Particularly when governments poisoned the social fabric by encouraging division through a culture of peer pressure, fear, groupthink and safetyism. All of which has been defended by an extremely bad theological understanding of Christ’s “sacrificial love.”
The relevant political parallels cross the cultural divide.
Kamel’s continuing mistreatment at the hands of abusive authorities is a reminder of the importance of Biblical Christianity, and the need to protect key tenets of Classical Liberalism. Such as freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.
The downgrade of civil liberties is an open door to the same tyrannical mistreatment shown to Copts in Egypt. Whereby a section of the community is deemed by an authoritarian religiopolitical system, to be second class citizens, or people unworthy of life.
Applicable here is the Communist Chinese Party’s blanket purge of the Uyghurs, which the BBC states, includes:
Forced labour, forced medical treatments, and the detaining of more than one million Uyghurs against their will in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”, with hundreds of thousands sentenced to prison terms.
Laws being passed in Victoria, Australia, which will potentially outlaw protests, dissent, or anyone who views marriage as the biblically backed biological covenant between man and woman, are another example.
As is the similarity between Shari’a law – highly influential in creating a total Islamised social fabric in majority Muslim nations – and unelected health bureaucrats ruling by decree, in the place of representative democracy.
An Islamic apartheid separating the dhimmis and full citizens are reflected in the indefensible social exclusion of the “unvaccinated.”
“Vaccine” mandates have the same power inferences as the jizya, a tax paid instead of converting to Islam. As well as Dhimmitude, which makes Christians and Jews a “protected” second-class citizenry under Islamist rule.
There is also a perceivable correlation between “no jab, no job” fanaticism and Islam’s infamous: “convert, pay a tax, or die.”
On the 18th November, International Christian Concern told of how:
Coptic students at an elementary and middle school in Egypt’s Minya Governorate were beaten up by teachers and fellow students after the headmaster ordered all Christian students to remove any jewellery bearing a cross.
Pre-empting “get the vax or face the axe,” in September I warned that another point of relevance is the pending removal of civil rights and civil liberties from the vaccine-hesitant.
I added:
The “domestic terrorism” and “misuse of social media” charges against Ramy Kamel, are proof that these labels can be easily used by abusive governments, ecclesial, and civic leaders, to squash dissent, in order to avoid accountability, reasoned opposition, and the truth.
This happened and is still happening.
Yet, there are millions of naïve people who embrace the false sense of security the “vaccine” mandates offer.
They’re militant about carrying on as “normal” under the false premise that an oppressive system of Government has their best interests at heart.
Ramy Kamel’s incarceration doesn’t just highlight the injustices being felt in Egypt. His suffering and detention offer a red flag to any Westerner who thinks that what is happening to him, could never happen to them.
You can sign the petition for Ramy’s release here: FREE RAMY KAMEL.
