Yara’s Dream Comes to an End by the Appeal Judgment
Cairo: HelloEgy.
Few days before the appeal judgment , Yara’s father the poet Mohammed Salam, did his best to get as much signatures as he can to convince the president to release his daughter who was arrested in a demonstrate in front of the Federal Palace.
A large number of users interacted with the father and his campaign, and started to sympathize signatures and comments, but the appeal judgment did not clear the defendants, but the sentence was commuted from prison three years to two years.
The Egyptian appeals court commuted the sentence on the 23 activists who were convicted of violating a law that bans demonstrations without permission, and the judgment was subject to appeal before the Court of Cassation, the highest Egyptian civilian court.
The human rights organizations condemned the arrest of activists in June through demonstrating against the law, which restricts protests strongly and said that the arrest shows the climate of a growing political repression in Egypt.
A number of activists have prepared a petition to the President demanding the release of Yara and her colleagues. They identified the following goals:
The International Petition:
We demand the unconditional immediate release and drop all charges against Yara Salam and Sanaa Seif, and their colleagues who were arrested because of their opposition to the law concerning holding demonstrations, No. 107, 2013.
Dear Colleagues:
This is a joint statement of lawyers around the world , demanding the release of the human rights lawyer Yara Sallam and her colleagues who were arrested for defying the Egyptian law that prevents holding demonstrations without permission . She and the 22 accused were sentenced to three years in prison, three years of probation, and a fine .
After reading this appeal, we kindly ask you to sign, and call your colleagues to sign too .We kindly ask you to sign the petition before the December 27, 2014, where the Court of Appeal hearing is on the next day.
And will be sent to this petition to the foreign ministers in our countries, and the Egyptian ambassador in the United States, and the ambassadors accredited to the United Nations .
The human rights lawyers and defenders in Egypt suffer a very bad treatment and lack if respect. And it was said that the security authorities have arrested 16 thousand people at least for political reasons since the displacement of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in July 2013 , and the imprisoned of the human rights defenders is a violation of human rights and a violation of law itself .
Yara Sallam is a lawyer and human rights defender, who was arrested and imprisoned, sentenced - she and 22 others -for holding a peaceful demonstration against the new demonstration law.
According to the witnesses, The convicts chanted anti-regime slogans during the were transferred from the court in the north-east of Cairo to prison.
Human rights organizations described the accusations against the activists as “fake”, as it is based on weak evidence, and intended to warn citizens from challenging the government's policies.
Khaled Mansour, the executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights - where Yara has been working as a lawyer - said : "despite the expected sentence in light of the harsh and unjust penalties in similar cases , we were shocked and foiled by the way in which the politicians and activists are punished in Egypt for the peaceful expression of their views . "
According to eyewitnesses, Yara Sallam (28 years) did not participate in the demonstration but she was arrested while she was nearby .
Among the convicts there was Sana Abdul Fattah, 20 years old and a university student, sister of the prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah who is jailed for retrial proceedings on charges also related to holding a demonstration without permission.
The sources said that the sentence was reduced from three years imprisonment years with labor and a fine of ten thousand pounds ($ 1400) to two years imprisonment with labor.
A source said that the Criminal Appellant Court , in Cairo, also eased as stated, so the convicts will be under police surveillance for two years after their release of prison sentence of two years.
Yara’s imprisonment and her colleagues evoked the emotions of the Egyptian poets to write great poems. The poet Mohammad Rayad writes : “translated”
Restrictions don’t add anything new,
Your smile is still wider than the cage,
You still smile despite your jail. You read,
And laugh with your mates,
You read to keep away from boredom, insomnia, and restlessness
You try , and try
To make jail more fair than freedom.
Your eyes still smile,
And smile for every one,
Like a child in prison ,
A fairy queen in jail,
So lets write the poems for her sake.
It’s natural to feel pain,
To fight,
And be jailed.
It’s natural to die,
And to pay the price of civilization ,
the price of our freedom.
Yara’s father , the poet and translator Refaat Salam said : “ the imprisonment of Yara and her colleagues is the result of the failure to achieve the revolution demands . “
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