Brains Like a Shoe

World Refugee Day Celebration; Cairo, Egypt (2005)

The elections in Sudan are understandably grabbing all of the headlines this week.  The National Election Commission today extended voting for two days because of the widespread confusion and delays in the electoral process. The opposition parties boycotting the elections also directly attacked U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, as the head of the Carter Center’s election monitoring team, for their support of these elections. It is their claim that the Obama administration has made a deal with Omar Al Bashir’s government to support fraudulent elections in exchange for the referendum of southern secession in January 2011. At Save Darfur, we have put together a full summary of the election-related developments.

Tonight though, I wanted to take a brief moment to highlight another human rights issue: the status of refugees in Egypt. The treatment and daily life of refugees – mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan – has never been easy. I know this from a year spent volunteering as an English teacher at a refugee center, Saint Andrews, in downtown Cairo. Due to these daily hardships, over the past few years, a number of refugees have attempted to travel to the Sinai peninsula and enter Israel illegally. In some instances, Egyptian security forces have shot at and killed refugees making the crossing, and the Israeli authorities have also violated the rights guaranteed to refugees.

Why am I writing about this tonight?  Because at least two Darfuris in Egypt are at immediate risk of forcible return to Sudan. Amnesty International issued a warning on Friday that the authorities planned to return Sudanese refugees Mohamed Adam Abdallah and Ishaq Fadl Dafallah to Sudan today, April 12. If returned, Amnesty warned that they would be in grave danger of being tortured or otherwise ill-treated in Sudan.

This warning comes on the heels of a Human Right Watch statement two weeks ago that:

Egyptian border guards have shot dead three migrants attempting to cross from Egypt to Israel over the past four days, bringing the total number of migrants shot dead at the border so far this year to 12…The Egyptian authorities have arrested a number of refugees over the past month, one of whom remains missing, and the authorities also appear to be preparing to deport two refugees from Darfur back to Sudan, where they face detention and torture.

One Darfuri detained is the brother of a dear friend of mine, Fatima Haroun, who is a active leader of the Darfuri diaspora community in the United States. Michelle at Change.org last week wrote about Faisal Haroun’s experience. In the post, she quotes Fatima:

I was promised that I would be able to get in touch with him, but finally was informed that the Egyptian authorities now are denying that Faisal is even in jail. This scares and terrifies me very much since it has been more than two months and no one is able to locate my brother. My other brother was tortured the entire time he was detained. Faisal also has a stomach ulcer and requires special diet, which I am sure will not be provided, if he has been offered any food at all.

Michelle provides information on how individuals can urge Egyptian authorities to provide access to legal counsel for Faisal; ultimately release him; and cease harassing, through arrest and detention, other detained refugees.

Amnesty also asks people to send appeals to the Egyptian Minister of the Interior, Prosecutor General, and Deputy Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Human Rights.

Given the very real risks to these individuals, I hope that you might take a few minutes to help.