IBRAHIM HALAWA HAS written an impassioned letter to Ireland describing his three year captivity and his desire to return home to Dublin.
The 20-year-old has been jailed since August 2013 after he was arrested and detained at a protest in Cairo. The demonstration was in support of the Muslim Brotherhood which had been ousted from power by the Egyptian military.
The Egyptian authorities have chosen to try Halawa in a mass trial along with almost 500 other people, a decision that has either deliberately or indirectly led to the repeated postponements.
In the letter, he details how simple he thought his life was. From crying over his first love to not getting a computer game, Halawa told how his life has now changed forever as he tries to understand “how one human enjoys torturing another human”.
He has also said that, if he dies in jail, he wants to be buried in Ireland.
Here is his unedited letter in full.
“Dear Ireland
I really don’t know what to say, I have been taken away from you for so long. But I miss you dearly. It’s really out of my hands. I can’t understand, I just can’t understand why they have kidnapped me away from you.
So young I was while you were teaching me how to live, laugh, love and care. But they have taken me away before you had the time to teach me how to struggle, how to deal with evil and hatred.
When I was young I used to run to you whenever I was sad and needed to complain about my humongous kiddie problems. The time my mum delayed getting me the latest playstation game when all the other friends had it. Or when I wasn’t allowed stay out late at night And when I entered secondary school and exams were much tougher than before. Or that time I came to complain about my first teenage love.
‘Go back to your own country’
Do you remember when I came running to you craying about the kid who screemed at me saying “go back to your country” and as usual you were crying rain and I was relieved because you were sharing my crying. But now that I’m growing up away from you and banned from talking to you, who am I supposed to complain to now that my kiddie worldly problems turned out to be just a drop in the ocean.
Ireland, I really need to complain to you about how one human enjoys torturing another human, the continues injustice, the oppression and the killing of the innocent. Ireland I’m lusting to walk on the sand of Bray beach, scramming freedom from the top of cliffs moher, your rainforest trees to hug me tight and make me feel safe again and that kind bus driver on the daily commute, smiling at me even thought he does not know me.
Begging
Ireland I really want to complain to you about the people my parents voted for, to protect me in any land and under any sky, and have failed to bring me back to you. Now I understand that you were not crying this rains with me but you were crying because of what the world holds fore me one final wish, I beg from if I die away from you take me back from them to be buried in your soil and feel your goodbye tears.”
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