UN Watch Intervention to 19th session of the UNHRC,
Item 4: “Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention”
Delivered by Maikel Nabil Sanad, 12 March 2012
Thank you, Madam President.
My name is Maikel Nabil Sanad. I am twenty-six years old, and I come from Cairo.
Today I am free. But only weeks ago, I was a prisoner of conscience, in my country Egypt, over 302 days of suffering and pain.
Today I wish to ask the nations assembled here: Who committed a crime—me, or the Supreme Council of Armed Forces that now rules my country?
Let us consider the facts.
In 2010, after I asked for my right to conscientiously object to Military Service, I was arrested by the Military Police. In February 2011, I was arrested again for joining my friends in Tahrir Square, and was beaten and sexually harassed.
A month later, I was arrested because of a blog post, which documented how the military kidnapped, tortured, sexually harassed, and killed human rights activists.
I was convicted in a military trial for “insulting the military,” and was sentenced to three years in prison. In the local media the army questioned my patriotism, and spread hatred against me because of my religious beliefs.
In jail I was subjected to brutal treatment, as if I were not a human being. They tried to remove my humanity. My family and friends were targeted by the military. I went on a hunger strike for 130 days.
Many kind people worldwide campaigned on my behalf. After ten months, I was finally released. Yet the military calls it a pardon—meaning they never admitted that the entire process was a sham.
I am one of many victims. Activists in Egypt have been killed, tortured, arbitrarily detained, tried by the military, subjected to “virginity tests”, and attacked by state-owned media, without any protection from local or international authorities.
And so I ask: When will the United Nations protect the rights of Egyptians under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the international covenant of civil and political rights? Thank you.
