Poet and lyricist Galal El-Behairy has now been imprisoned in Egypt for more than five years in violation of his right to freedom of expression.
Galal El-Behairy was first arrested on 5 March 2018 and served a three-year sentence in relation to his collection of poetry The Finest Women on Earth. Despite completing his sentence in 2021, El-Behairy was not released but instead presented with new charges. Two years later he remains in detention.
In March 2023, as he began his sixth year in prison, Galal El-Behairy announced that he will begin a hunger strike to protest his ongoing and unlawful detention.
If it is your life that is being stolen, where can you go and who can you turn to?
Please take a few moments to send a message of solidarity to Galal El-Behairy via our form below.
Background
Galal El-Behairy, an Egyptian poet and lyricist, has been held since 5 March 2018 and has reportedly been tortured and beaten in detention. He initially faced charges of ‘joining a terrorist group’, ‘disseminating false news’, and ‘insulting the President’ for lyrics he had written for the song Balaha, which was performed and disseminated online by exiled Egyptian singer Ramy Essam. The case was eventually dropped, but he remained in detention.
In a separate case, on 31 July 2018, El-Behairy was sentenced to three years imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian Pounds by a military court on charges of ‘disseminating false news and rumours by writing a book containing false news and statements about the Egyptian armed forces’, and ‘insulting the Egyptian army by issuing a book containing phrases that offend the Egyptian army’. The sentence related to his book of poetry, The Finest Women on Earth.
In July 2021, El-Behairy completed his three-year prison term. However, rather than being released, he was instead subjected to enforced disappearance for three weeks before being charged with ‘disseminating false news’ and ‘joining a terrorist group’. He remains in detention.
El-Behairy’s family informed PEN International that his health has significantly deteriorated during his imprisonment, as a result of the poor prison conditions in which he is held, and the lack of adequate medical care. El-Behairy reportedly suffers from heart problems, high blood pressure, and acute depression.
On 5 March 2023, El-Behairy declared that he would begin a hunger strike, including refraining from taking heart medication and antidepressants, and escalating to including drinking if his demands are not met.
Translation of Galal El-Behairy’s message:
Five years have passed .. five years if we tried to take them apart, they would equal 1800 days and more. This could be just a regular number among the numbers, but when it becomes leaves falling from your life-trees, it becomes demonic and frightening.
In the past, I used to know that if one’s wallet or car was stolen, they would go to the nearest police station and get help. But I do not know who would help that whose life is being stolen.
We were brought up to know the concept of “country” to be a vast, astonishing, and amazing entity, but why this entity was reduced to the space of a meter in a cell inside a prison? Why this amazing entity turned into a terrifying freak with a principal role to destroy its sons’ lives and obliterate everything that is beautiful and humane in them.
I think I am a son of this country, and I think there are much important roles that me and all those like me, whose hands never shed blood or minds ever knew the way to extremism, than to wither and grow old behind bars.
Today I start my sixth year of a life wasted in prisons. Behind me many shameful accusations, the least is lying and the worst is terrorism, all of which I did not commit, but one, “Poetry”.
Mature poetry, naive poetry, idealistic or adolescent poetry, it is “poetry”.
Today, I decided to practice my constitutional and human right to protest this inhumane situation by starting a hunger strike. First, I will refrain from taking food, my heart medication and antidepressants, and gradually I will refrain from drinking water.
The strike will continue until I regain my freedom, either alive or dead.
Galal El-Behairy
Badr 1 Prison
Cell 55/2
Section 4
Sunday 5 March 2023
PEN believes that Galal El-Behairy is being held in violation of his right to freedom of expression and urges the Egyptian authorities to release him and other writers detained in Egypt immediately and unconditionally.
Photo credit: Private collection.
