HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Shahira Amin* – Index on Censorship

Cairo, October 3, 2011 – It’s Maikel Nabil Sanad’s 26th birthday but he is in no celebratory mood. When I arrive at El Marg prison north of Cairo during visiting hours on Saturday 1 October, I can barely hide my shock at seeing his bony physique.

Image: Lilian Wagdy | Wikimedia Commons

Maikel is wearing a wrinkled blue track suit and on his head is a baseball cap worn backwards in a sign of rebellion. It is clear that Maikel is in extremely frail health. He attempts to stand up to greet me but almost immediately falls back into his chair in sheer exhaustion.

That’s because today, Maikel tells me, is also the 40 day of his hunger strike — one that he had hoped would draw public attention to his plight and force the ruling military council to reconsider what he describes as the military’s “discriminatory “policies.

Human Wrongs Watch

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says Syrian military and security forces have killed at least 2,700 people; but activists and human rights groups put that number as high as 5,300.

Credit: UN

Swept up in a wave of protests demanding political freedoms and human and civil rights across the Arab region, Syrian protesters have seen a violent crackdown by the Syrian military and security services.

“We are in a stalemate,” said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Syria.

“We are in a very difficult situation, where if things [continue] like this, we don’t have any light at the end of the tunnel,” he added, citing an “excessive use of force” by the government; the refusal by some parts of the opposition to negotiate; and increased violence in places like Homs.