Cairo: 2 February 2021
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today that Egyptian citizens who infuriate or displease the National Security apparatus are now facing a new farcical accusation; “political suspicion”, upon which director and screenwriter “Moamen Hassan” was held for seven days in illegal detention, before he was brought before the Public Prosecution that, in turn, ordered his remand detention for 4 days pending probe.
On 25 January 2021, a security force arrested director and screenwriter Moamen Hassan after stopping him, getting him off the taxi he took to go to work in the vicinity of Tahrir Square, and searched his mobile phone, while alleging that he had a chat with an Arab girl (on the private chat app Messenger) that involves political allusions about the current regime.
Consequently, they detained him for nearly 9 hours in a National Security facility, located behind Omar Makram Mosque, before they took him to the Qasr al-Nil Police Station, where he had been illegally held for 7 days, before he appeared before the Public Prosecution on January 31 over record/ communiqué’ No. 662 of 2021 Qasr al-Nil Misdemeanors.
The Public Prosecution didn’t assume its role in implementing the law; it didn’t release Moamen nor did it investigate the violations committed by the police- including his false arrest and the infringement on his privacy when he was forced to open his mobile phone- rather it interrogated him as a defendant accusing him of “using an Internet website to promote a terrorist act”. The Prosecution also ignored the fact that this accusation is trumped-up and that the police report/record has no date or reference to the act alleged to be propagated, but rather includes some police expressions and wording that cannot be uttered except by a policeman who does not respect the law. Such statements include: “In the context of following up on the state of political suspicion”. The Public Prosecution accordingly decided to hold director and screenwriter Moamen Hassan in detention for 4 days pending investigation.
It is noteworthy that the director and screenwriter “Moamen Hassan”, who is also a member of the Syndicate of Cinema Professions, was previously arrested in 2018 and was added to Case No. 441 of 2018 State Security, in which he was charged with joining a terrorist group and publishing false news and information, before he was later released on the 1st of December 2018.
ANHRI calls on the Public Prosecutor to immediately release Moamen Hassan, and to summon Major Mohamed Ayman, who arrested Hassan without legal basis, and interrogate him for committing crimes of assaulting the inviolability of citizens’ private lives and for fabricating the accusations against the screenwriter, not to mention his 7-day illegal detention before he was brought before the Public Prosecution. Such acts are, indeed, deemed crimes and offences that are punishable under the Penal Code.
ANHRI also reiterates its demands to put an end to the Public Prosecution’s participation with the security apparatus in the undermining of the provisions of the Constitution and citizens’ rights and freedoms; by repeatedly ordering the detention of citizens under no legal ground and only based on fabricated investigation reports, which the Court of Cassation previously described as “nothing more than merely unsubstantiated statements that only express the opinion of the one (police officer) who conducts it”.
