Egyptian-Palestinian political activist Ramy Shaath, detained in Egypt for more than two years, is on a plane to Paris but was forced to give up his Egyptian nationality to secure his release, his family announced on Saturday.
“As of this writing, Ramy is on his way to Paris,” wrote in a statement his family, who said they were “relieved and delighted” by this announcement, but who also regretted that Cairo “l ‘forced him to renounce his Egyptian citizenship as a precondition for his release “.
Ramy Shaath was released “on the evening of (Thursday) January 6, following more than 900 days of arbitrary detention,” according to his people. The Egyptian authorities then handed him over to a representative of the Palestinian Authority at Cairo airport, from where he boarded a plane to Amman.
“While we are happy that the Egyptian authorities have heeded our call for freedom, we regret that they forced him to renounce his Egyptian citizenship as a precondition for his release” following “two and a half years of unjust detention in inhuman conditions, ”the family protested.
“No one should have to choose between their freedom and their citizenship. Ramy was born Egyptian, raised as an Egyptian and Egypt has always been and always will be his homeland,” she said. “No forced renunciation of citizenship taken under duress will ever change that.”
The 48-year-old man, a figure of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and the coordinator in Egypt of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS, advocating the boycott of Israel in the fight once morest the occupation of the Palestinian Territories) was detained since July 2019 for wanting to foment “unrest once morest the state”.
An Egyptian judicial source told AFP his release on Monday evening, but it took several days to materialize. The French Foreign Ministry had communicated Tuesday on his “imminent release”.
His French wife, Céline Lebrun, had been deported to Paris at the time of her arrest.
