Irishman Ibrahim Halawa writes from imprisonment about his graduation day

Tue, 27 Sep, 2016 - 12:51

Ibrahim Halawa, the Irishman who faces his 15th rescheduled trial with 493 other people on October 3 has written a letter on the year that would have included his graduation day.

Mr Halawa has been imprisoned for over 1,130 days in Egypt without trial in allegedly horrific prison conditions without being able to see his family and friends.

More recently Ibrahim has been complaining of pain in his chest which, due to his family history, is thought to be a heart problem.

” Today has finally come, my graduation day, The day i have longed for. The day my parents invested their whole lives in to see me reach. It’s the day while every graduate gets their hair done, I forcibly get my head shaved, while my rough white clothes is my uniform, my fellow graduates are dressed in their best outfits.

"Today while every graduate throws their graduation hat in the sky to come down with the long waiting dream, I don’t see the sky because I’m enrolled in a different college

"A college i did not know I had applied for when I chose to fight for freedom, a college that kidnapped me from life to teach me the principles of really life, a college full of lessons. A lot of which I have learned in dark moments and nights where the first lesson is how I should have appreciated small lesuires in life that passed by unnoticeably. So simple as the sun burn that would reflect of my book to light my face up or the morning breeze that will find its way through its lungs.

"Striving with life’s toughest conditions was another lesson. Being forced to show with 30 human beings 24/7 dormitory where my sleeping area is 35cm.

"In this college I’m obliged to live with a broad diversity of inmates from presidential consultants and college professors to illiterate criminals which thought me to see the real human being behind every social rank.

"I have learned that absolutism is an invalid way to judge humans, humanity is all about relativism.

"It is a college where the hardest subject is finding the forgiveness, as I must say as a freedom fighter I never became a revenge hunter.

"Even though after all these years my oppressor is yet not convicted to let me graduate from his prison and go home while for others it’s graduation night out for me its graduation lights out.”