Background:

ʿIsām al-ʿIrīyān has been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for many years and served on its Guidance Bureau. He is now the Vice Chairman of Ḥizb al-Ḥurriya w-al-ʿAdāla‎ (Freedom and Justice Party) founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011. Al-ʿIrīyān has been arrested several times; in 1981 during the famous September arrests, in 1995 and imprisoned until 2000, and again before the Friday of Anger on 28 January 2011 during the Egyptian revolution. When Dr. al-ʿIrīyān was arrested in 1981, under the regime of Anwar al-Sādāt, he reported to have been tortured. When the-then 42 year-old had been arrested again in 1995, this was allegedly not the case.

Fāṭmā Fāḍl Sayyīd; al-ʿIrīyān’s wife shares her husband’s experience in prison and the reasons for his arrest according to her.

Side A:

The police came to ʿIsām al-ʿIrīyān’s flat at 1AM and destroyed the main entrance of the apartment. Al-ʿIrīyān’s wife; Fāṭmā Fāḍl Sayyīd tried to wake him up when she saw the police, but they stormed inside the bedroom and forced al-ʿIrīyān to get up. The police searched for suspicious material in al-ʿIrīyān’s bag and bookshelves. According to Sayyīd, there were six police officers who came into the apartment, as well as a few soldiers with automatic weapons. Outside, there were two microbuses parked which could hold twenty-eight soldiers.

Sayyīd describes her husband’s experience in jail as in a way liberating for al-ʿIrīyān as she believes that he is a good man and is fighting for what he believes in, thus he knows that what he does is for a good cause which is Allāh. Sayyīd says her husband feels sad because prison is filled with doctors, engineers and lawyers instead of actual criminals. It is because these people are fighting for Islamic rights which are against the wishes of the government, that they are imprisoned. Al-ʿIrīyān’s cellmates in the Ṭura Prison are fellow Muslim Brotherhood associates; Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Laṭīf and ʾĪbrāhīm al-Zaʿfrānī. This penitentiary, although holding many political detainees, is also filled with many criminal prisoners.

The conditions of the Ṭura Prison are very bad according to Sayyīd. She says al-ʿIrīyān rarely eats at all, except for the food she brings for him during her visits. There is no supermarket or cafeteria and the prisoners sleep on the floor without mattresses. Sayyīd says it is only recently that her husband has had access to a small fridge which the families of the prisoners have bought for them. Sayyīd asserts that she sees her husband only twice a month for thirty minutes and believes that this will continue to go on until the end of the elections, which is when she believes he will be released.

When Sayyīd is asked what the Egyptian government is like, she responds by saying that it is only Islamic by name and that there is no actual Sharīʿah in place.

Side B:

Sayyīd furthermore argues it is uncommon for a civilian to be taken to military court but this is happening more often now. She says this is done especially with members of the Brotherhood, in order to prevent them from running for elections and eventually go into parliament. It is said that some people even want members of the Brotherhood to run for elections from inside the prison, but the government is preventing them from doing so. Sayyīd says another few members of the Brotherhood were arrested two days prior to the interview for similar reasons including Muḥammad Saʿd al-Katātnī, Maḥmūd ʿIzzat and Saʿd Zaghlūl al-ʿAshmāwī who were all doctors. These people wanted to run for elections but when the government found out, they were arrested.

It is said that often when such cases are taken to civil courts, these are immediately dismissed because the cases are not based on proof but rather on political agendas. Sayyīd says it becomes more difficult when such cases are taken to military court. Allegedly, the prosecution gave the (military) court files without evidence, yet the trial was pursued. A lot of lawyers are not able to contact their defendants and many of them presented requests to the court asking for 40 additional pieces to be added to the court files.