This week 35 US senators and congress people wrote to the Egyptian president to call for the release of my husband Karim and his human rights colleagues. Some British MPs have started to speak out, but we need more to ramp up the pressure. Please email your MP about this - you could help bring our nightmare to an end.
I’m terrified of the conditions that my husband is being kept in. We know that at least one of the detainees is being kept in solitary confinement, has had his head forcibly shaved, and is sleeping on a metal bed with no mattress or blanket in a cold cell. We need to act fast to get them free.
You can find your MP’s email address by clicking here. Then either write your own email or you can copy and paste the email below. I would be so grateful - it will only take a minute and it could help get my husband back.
Dear MP
I'm contacting you as my elected representative to ask for your urgent intervention in the case of Karim Ennarah, who was arrested this week and is now in jail along with 3 other staff from Egyptian human rights organisation EIPR. I am one of the almost 100,000 people who have signed the petition started by his wife Jessica Kelly, a British citizen, calling on the UK government to urgently intervene to secure their release: change.org/FreeKarim.
Karim was arrested after EIPR met with European diplomats including representatives from the UK - our Government has a duty to act. His arrest is part of a crackdown on EIPR, almost the only human rights organisation still functioning in Egypt. His colleagues Gasser Abed El Razek and Mohamed Bashir were also arrested, while Patrick George Zaki has been in detention since February. We know that at least one of them, perhaps all of them, are being held in solitary confinement in appalling conditions. All must be freed.
The UK Foreign Office has stated it is “deeply concerned” at this crackdown, but this isn’t enough. I am writing to you directly as my parliamentary representative to ask you to press the Government and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ramp up the pressure on the Egyptian authorities and sustain the pressure until they are free. I also request that you personally come out publicly to condemn the arrests, as politicians across the world have been doing.
Please let me know what steps you will take on this issue
#FreeKarim #FreeEIPRstaff