‘She could lose her life’: Husband of British mother-of-four detained on Egypt trip makes emotional plea to PM
The husband of a British mother-of-four who has been detained in a maximum-security facility in Egypt for six weeks has urged the UK government to help secure her release.
Eman el-Shazly, 45, travelled to Cairo to visit her mother when she was taken by Egyptian security forces on 17 August, according to her husband Zeesharn Moustapha.
The property was “smashed up” and the family say they were told to tell her activist sister Mona to stop publishing criticism, before officers returned to take el-Shazly and another sister, Shaema, the following day.
Moustapha said that the last thing he heard was his wife saying: “They’re going to take me” before the line went dead.
Since that day, the family has had no contact with Eman and say that she has been refused a lawyer. They do not know the condition she is in and are concerned for her welfare.
The family believe that she is being detained over social media videos posted by her sister Mona that have been critical of the Egyptian government.
Now he says his wife is facing a “kangaroo court” and fears for her safety. Last week the family launched a petition to “bring Eman home” and asked prime minster Andy Burnham and foreign secretary Ed Milband to use their influence to secure her release.
The couple share four children including three sons aged 18, 16 and nine and a 14-year-old daughter.
Moustapha says that the children have been forced to start the new school year without their mother and that they have been left “traumatised” by the ordeal.
“They’ve been upset, distraught, crying,” he told The Independent. “It was my son’s 10th birthday and he’s saying, ‘Mummy’s going to miss my birthday.’ It’s an emotional time for a young boy.”
The family have seen Eman’s brothers arrested on “identical” charges, with Moustapha saying that the men were previously held in pre-trial detention for around three years, before the charges were dropped and they were re-arrested in May this year.
They were accused of “promoting the ideas of a terrorist organisation on social media, as well as broadcasting false news harmful to state security”.
Due to the previous cases, Moustapha says that his children are worried that the situation will be repeated for their mother.
“She’s quite a strong-willed person but something like that would break anyone,” Moustapha says. “I’d be on the floor crying, you’re in a different country and then thrown into jail on fake charges.”
