Radical (26 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

No Right to Silence

Like the desert scorpion, Aman al-Dawlah still had one final sting to deliver us before we were allowed to leave Egypt. The Egyptian prison system is supposed to release prisoners after serving three-quarters of their sentence. Our release date—the marker of three years and nine months—had come and gone. Paperwork, we were told. Bureaucracy. In Egypt, one could never be sure if it was incompetence or something more sinister behind things. One only had to look at the tens of thousands of white-clothed prisoners arbitrarily detained—the
mu'taqaleen
—to witness the elasticity of the Egyptian justice system.

Then one day, out of the blue, a
shaweesh
came running into my cell:

“Maagid, they've arrived! They've arrived! Start packing your things,
inta murawweh
—you're going home!”

But does anyone ever leave Egypt's jails? What of my friend Ashraf al-Nahri, who completed a ten-year sentence, only to be taken on a round-trip to al-Gihaz and interned again? I still remember the look of total sadness on his face. Have you ever seen total sadness? He left in the blue overalls of those with sentences, only to be processed and returned in the white clothes of a
mu'taqal,
arbitrarily imprisoned again with no respite. I went to him then to make him a cup of tea and to share words of comfort, perhaps a game of chess; al-Nahri was a master of chess, and he had always been kind to me.

Put aside cruelty, put aside violence, even put aside murder for a moment, and consider justice. Justice, if it means anything, must mean to adhere to your own confessed principles. If you claim to stand for the rule of law and democracy, then stick to what you claim and be judged by it. If you claim to stand for death, and violent revolution, and armed struggle, then stick to what you claim, and be judged by it.

These men stood by their ideology, they fought and in some cases killed for their cause, and they were judged by it. Killed, tortured, or locked away. Now they have recanted. They have not only served their time but they have also renounced their past because they trusted in your “rule of law.” So will you now be judged by your principles? Or what else is left, but a return to lawlessness and vigilante vengeance? And so I didn't dare hope that I would be returning home. After all this was Egypt: “we do as we please.”

As word rippled through the prison that we were leaving, a succession of people came up to say their farewells. Salah Bayoumi, convicted for the assassination of President Sadat, in prison since I was four years old, gave me a farewell present—a copy of the Qur'an with a dedication from him at the front. He began to cry as he embraced me and bade me farewell. His eyes carried the burdens of a tortured soul, confused about his own past and doubtful about his own future. As much as possible, I tried to keep my emotions in check out of respect for the many who had completed their sentences only to be re-interned as
mu'taqaleen
.

I had less respect for the prison authorities. We were taken in to see the prisoner governor, the one who had threatened to kill me. He had not yet been transferred but was clearly worried about what was to happen to him. He asked us three to sign a prepared statement about our stay in prison. I read through the document. What a complete travesty it was. It went into farcical detail about how well we had been looked after throughout our stay. Each of us refused. I handed the governor his pen back.
If you want to know what I think about Mazrah Tora,
we told him,
you'll have to watch it on al-Jazeera, with everybody else.

The metal blue police vans came to pick us up. We were fully expecting a deportation order, to be escorted straight to the airport, put on a plane, and handed over at Heathrow Airport. Until we set foot on British soil, I refused to let myself believe that we were actually going home. As it turned out, Aman al-Dawlah didn't want to let us go without saying a special form of goodbye first. When the door to the van opened, I could see a guard holding my old nemesis, the
ghimamah,
a rag with which to blindfold my eyes, and my worst fears were realized.

This time, we were taken to Lazughli, the only Aman al-Dawlah building to match al-Gihaz for notoriety. We tried to protest. We explained to the guard that we had documentation, demanded to see a British representative, but he just laughed.

“No British here,” he said. “Just Egypt. Now silence!”

Blindfolded again, and held in another torture center, day turned to night and my dreams to darkness, as the terrifying backdrop of tortured souls continued without let-up. Scream after scream began to echo through the building. Four years had passed since our ordeal in al-Gihaz, but Aman al-Dawlah had not changed. They were still practicing the systematic use of torture as their default interrogation device. Except this time with a sickening, macabre twist. Penetrating through wild screams of agony, we could hear the clear, distinct, rhythmic sound of the guards listening to a recorded recitation of the Qur'an as they tortured people. Such a flagrantly sacrilegious display could also be a twisted psychological trick—to say to the Islamist detainees,
your faith won't help you here.
Or perhaps in some sort of sociopathic way, they thought they were doing God's work.

After some hours I asked to go to the toilet. A guard picked me up and escorted me through the building.

My mind was playing tricks on me.
My name is Maagid Nawaz, I am a member of Hizb al-Tahrir. It's OK,
I said to myself as I tried to ward off the nightmares of al-Gihaz,
calm yourself, Allah is with you. You will get out of here.

As I came out of the toilet, I heard a quiet sobbing in the bathroom area and turned to speak to a young man nursing his wounds.

“
Akhi,
what's wrong?” I asked, unable to see him through my
ghimamah.

“I-I-I cannot stand,” the man cried. “The pain. My feet, my legs feel like they are burning.”

“What have they done to you?”

“The electricity,” came his broken reply.

“You have been chosen to be tested by Allah for your faith in Him. Be proud of yourself, don't cry,
akhi,
you're a man now. You join the ranks of the heroes and martyrs of old.”

And then the guard returned. “No talking! I'm warning you, we can do that to you too!” he shouted.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was just asking this brother where you had gone.”

Eventually I heard the morning
azan.
We had been in Lazughli all night, sixteen hours before we were finally processed. This time the blue van made no more unscheduled stops. British officials were waiting for us at Cairo International Airport, our passports and travel documents ready. An Aman al-Dawlah
zaabit
was to escort us all the way back to Heathrow on our British Airways flight.

“Any trouble,” the
zaabit
leaned over to tell us, “and I'll cuff you immediately.”

That was the last threat the Egyptian authorities threw at me. It was an empty gesture, and a pointless one. I was so exhausted after that sleepless, horrendous night in Lazughli that, as the plane took off, I fell into a deep sleep for most of the journey.

Egypt—after five years in your care, I bid you farewell. Despite all the pain we shared, I cannot forget you. How could I? Blood, sweat, and tears are not so easily removed from porous souls. I came to you a boy, those years ago, full of lofty ideals, my soul at peace with God, my ideas at war with man. I leave you now, my hair gray, full of confusion, my soul warring with God, my ideas finding peace with man. Don't cry, my love,
habibti,
for though together we were stranded on a barren floor in anguish, and though together we banished insanity by embracing pain, our Lord will see us through, as He always has. And the spring that you planted in my chest shall carve its path and ripple through your streets soon enough; like a river bursting its banks, it will flood your youth with hope. So prepare to rise again, for you are
Misr,
the land of the brave,
Ard al-Kinanah.

As soon as we landed, the Aman al-Dawlah
zaabit
melted away as if he had never existed. We were met on the plane by officers from London's SO15, Special Branch.

We sat in the specially built interrogation room at the airport. “Are you going to read me my rights?” I asked wearily. Having just come from one police state, I wanted to feel reassured that I hadn't flown back into another. “You know, my right to remain silent and all that?”

The officer smiled at me thinly. “Not here, Mr. Nawaz,” he said. “If you refuse to answer any of my questions, it's a criminal offense.”

“What? I'm sorry, how's that possible? Don't tell me you've done away with the right to silence?”

“Mr. Nawaz, UK law no longer grants you the right to silence in any port of entry or exit in the UK. I'm afraid that I will need a sample of your DNA and you will need to answer my questions. If you do not, I will have to charge you with a criminal offense.”

“Then I demand access to a lawyer, or is that a criminal offense now too?”

Fortunately, we had a lawyer waiting for us on the other side of the gate. Stephen Jackobi of the group Fair Trials Abroad had been active in campaigning for our release and was now with our families awaiting our return. Jackobi was friendly but clear about the law.

“The officer is correct, I'm afraid,” he said. “Since September 11, the rules have changed: at any port of exit or entry into the UK, there is no right to silence. That's why they want to interview you now, rather than on the other side of the barrier.”

“So what should I do?”

“My advice would be to cooperate for now,” Jackobi said. “You'll have to answer their questions.”

“And if I don't?”

Jackobi sighed. “They'll arrest you. There's nothing I can do about that, I'm afraid.”

And so I answered their questions briefly and succinctly, desperate just to go home.