Ramadan 19, 1432 A.H, Saturday, August 20, 2011
"A Message of Hope and Glad Tidings to Our Fellow Muslims in Egypt (6)"
Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri
(may Allah protect him)
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
By the Mujahid Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri, May Allah Protect Him
Pictures of protesters in Canada against the corruption of
Mubarak, raising the picture of Malik El-Shabazz.
Video excerpts from Malik El-Shabazz,
Malcolm X, may Allah have mercy on him:
“We're non-violent with people who are non-violent with us.”
“But we are not non-violent with anyone who is violent with
us.”
“Anytime you beg another man to set you free, you'll never be
free. Freedom is something that you have to do for
yourselves.”
“What is the price of freedom?”
“The price of freedom is death.”
”No, no, no, no, I will never say that progress is being made.
If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6
inches, there's no progress. You pull it all the way out,
that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that
the blow made.”
Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri, may Allah
protect him:
In the name of Allah, and all praise be to Allah, and may
prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family,
companions, and those who follow him.
O Muslim brothers everywhere, As-Salaamu Alaikum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuhu. Thereafter:
This is the sixth episode of “A Message of Hope and Glad
Tidings to Our Fellow Muslims in Egypt.” In episodes one and
two, I had begun to discuss the state of affairs of Egypt and
how this state can be changed. Then, the winds of the
courageous, popular uprising started to rise in Tunisia and
Egypt, and then in Libya and Yemen. So I decided to leave the
series of discussions that I had begun in the first two
episodes to discuss fundamentally what was happening in
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
And today, I feel that it is appropriate to focus the
discussion on Libya, Egypt, and Syria, due to the significance
of the events that are occurring there now.
To begin with, I wish to repeat what I had mentioned in the
previous episode, that our speeches may reach our precious
Ummah late, due to this vicious war against our Ummah being
waged by the Crusader alliance led by America. I hope that our
precious Ummah will forgive us, for Allah knows I wish to be
in the front line of the uprising of the Ummah against
oppression and the oppressors.
Before my emigration from Egypt, I had been keen on
participating in the popular protests since 1968, against the
setback of the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Then, I
participated in many popular protests against Sadat and his
regime. I was one of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square in
1971, and with me in these protests were the same honorable
brothers who took noble stands in the last Egyptian revolution
against Hosni Mubarak and his corrupt regime. Were it not for
my fear of causing them difficulty or harm, I would mention
them by name and compliment their courageous stances.
I also called more than once in my speeches for the Arabs in
general, and the Egyptian people specifically, to rise up
against the regimes of corruption and tyranny that have been
imposed upon us.
What I mean to say is that my brother Mujahideen and I are
prevented from instant communication with our Ummah during its
pains and hopes, due to the circumstances of the vicious
Crusader war being waged by America against our Ummah.
However, by the grace of Allah, we are waging, along with our
Ummah, the same battle against the greatest of criminals and
their proxies in our lands. Every victory for the Mujahideen
is a victory for the Ummah in its battle of reform to
establish a government based solely on Islam, justice, and
Shura; and rejecting oppression, corruption, and
subordination.
Our respected people in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, I wish to
divide my speech into several parts:
· The first message: To our fellow Muslims in Libya
· The second message: To our fellow Muslims in Egypt
· The third message: To our fellow Muslims in Syria
As for the message to our fellow Muslims in Libya:
I hope that our Muslim Ummah in Libya would be very well aware
about the conspiracy being hatched against Libya by NATO. NATO
is not a charitable foundation. Rather, it is an alliance of
the greatest dominators in this world, and they aim through
this campaign of theirs, to destroy the corrupt regime of
Gaddafi and replace it with a regime subordinate to them,
through which they can steal the oil of Libya and its
resources, forcing it to submit to their wants and policies.
They seek to turn Libya into a new Iraq, as through the call
to rid Iraq of the tyrant Saddam Hussein, they established a
proxy regime.
This criminal plan must be sabotaged and resisted by the
Muslim Ummah in Libya and the countries surrounding it. The
most important method to achieve this is to strengthen the
self-reliance of our people in Libya. The Muslims in countries
neighboring Libya, especially in Egypt, and especially the
tribes of the Western desert, must rise up and march forth to
support their brothers in Libya with money, food, medicine,
and weapons, and they must fight along with them against the
mercenaries of the tyrant Gaddafi. This is a specific
obligation on the people of Egypt; all those who are able
should go to them, especially those with the experience
required to fight against Gaddafi, whether it be military,
medical, engineering expertise or otherwise, so that our
people in Libya will form the self-reliance necessary to
empower them to thwart the conspiracies of NATO and its
supporters.
I also advise our brothers in Libya to gather weapons and
store them in preparation for the events and circumstances to
come.
I urge them to place importance on the weapons of guerrilla
warfare, such as light machine guns and their ammunition, RPGs
and explosives, cannons, Katyusha rockets, mines, mortars and
their ammunition, and booby-trap equipment.
They should pay importance to holding training sessions to
train the largest number of loyalists, the people of piety,
and those who are ready for sacrifice, so that the masses
become cultured with Jihad and gain enough experience to rid
Libya of the corruption of Gaddafi and the greed of the
Crusaders.
The battle in Libya today is the battle of the Muslim Ummah
and its masses, after the governments had failed and given up
their duty to protect the Libyan people from the crimes of
Gaddafi, satisfied with begging for foreign intervention from
the Security Council. The Arab governments failed – while
every disappointment and cowardice is expected from them - to
support a neighboring Muslim Arab people that had called to
them for help and assistance. This neglect appeared in its
ugliest forms in the military council ruling Egypt that gave
up supporting its Arab Muslim neighbors, preferring friendship
with the invaders of Egypt, despite all the danger this posed
to its national security. And why not, when it previously
chose the takeover of Palestine by Israel, besieging Gaza on
its behalf?! Indeed, the military council gave up its direct
responsibility to protect the lives of Egyptians in Libya who
are calling upon it to save them. But there is no life in whom
you call, for the military council left them as easy prey to
the shells of Gaddafi and his mercenaries. In Misrata alone,
seven thousand Egyptian families ask for help and no one
responds. Victims fall among them, while the military council
is occupied with the siege of Gaza and cannot move its forces
that are surrounding it to rescue the Egyptians in Libya.
As for my second message to our fellow Muslims in Egypt:
To begin with, I congratulate the Egyptian people, the Muslim
Ummah and the Arabs, all the free and noble, and all the weak
and oppressed in this world for the imprisonment of Hosni
Mubarak and his two sons. All praise be to Allah, who showed
us this day for a man whose cronies claimed that Allah could
not defeat him.
A Break with Video Excerpts Recorded
from the Egyptian Street
- An Egyptian Muslim who had been released from jail: They
thought that they could scare us by shocking us, but we would
be electrocuted and call out to Allah. The man would be
afraid, and he would tell me: “Yeah, let that Lord of yours
help you, let that Lord of yours help you.”
The people who believe that the State Security are
Muslims...there is no one on earth more infidelic than the
State Security. They are the dirtiest people on the face of
the planet. After they would electrocute us, they would say:
“Sorry, I do this in the first place because you have no
religion.”
Another Muslim: This happened in about 1998.
”Where is the pamphlet you are distributing?” The officer’s
name was Ahmad Heshmat in the Jaber bin Hayan branch.
I told him: “There is no pamphlet.”
Of course, I was beaten. And I said: “There was no pamphlet.”
I can now say that there was a pamphlet, and the pamphlet was
about Hijab.
So he said to me: 'Where is the paper you are distributing?'
I told him: “There was no pamphlet.”
He said: ”You will be punished for these words when we go to
the office.”
This conversation was at my front door. When we went to the
office, he spent an hour and a half continuously beating me.
And when he talked to his wife on the phone, he said: “Lower
your voice so you don’t hurt the feelings of the lady.”
Then he would say: “Don’t you say, ‘Help is sought only in
Allah’? Let Him help you!”
I swear that Allah assisted me, and I never imagined that a
human being could be beaten like this and survive. But Allah
assisted me, and I suffer from the pain of torture to this
very day, and Allah is sufficient for me, and what a good
advocate!
- A third Muslim: My name is Ismail Jad Ismail, and I just
left a week ago. I was arrested when I was 19 years old. It
was because I had organized a Quran reading session in the
mosque, and I would make the children and youth memorize the
Quran. They came and took me from my house at 2 a.m. and took
my twin brother with me. They wrecked the house, stole my
books, stole things from my house, and took me to the Jaber
bin Hayan branch in Giza. When you first go in, you are
stripped and then you are beaten. You are almost naked except
for a blindfold. He tells you that this is your private parts
(the eyes): a blindfold. He interrogated me sixty times. They
hung us on the door like this [gestures with his hands behind
his back] and suspended like this [hands put before him], and
in a suspended hang called “the rotisserie”, he puts a stick
between your legs like this and twists your legs... [he
indicates how the stick is placed under his foot]. He spreads
you out on a bed and electrocutes your body. I was
investigated sixty times. Sixty times! There are also women
being tortured. He would tell us: “My son, our Lord isn't able
to defeat Hosni Mubarak, so you think you can defeat him?!” My
brother companion would tell him:
“Think not that Allah doth not heed the deeds of those who do wrong” (Ibrahim: 42)
And he told him: “Rumors my son!” They consider that this book
was written by Muhammad's companions. “My son, we are not Abu
Lahab.” He says, “My son, when you do what you do, you cross
paths with the Pharaoh. So you tell him, ‘Dear sir, you left
behind true men after you!’ My son, I am an infidel and I
believe that I am an infidel.” If you go to the officers while
you are being tortured, he tells you: “They are youth who
believed in their Lord, so we gave them more, so bear witness
to this!” (in mockery of the verse in Surah Kahf). Then they
would all laugh at us. “My son, our Lord does not know of this
place. My son, you will never see asphalt (roads) again.” They
would threaten us that they would bring our families, and
threaten us with our honor. One boy who was 16 years old was
with me and was tortured because he had memorized the Quran
with me.
Reporter: How long did you stay in prison?
Muslim #3: I stayed for two years. I left a week ago from Al-'Aqrab
prison.”
Reporter: Because you were a Quran teacher?
Muslim #3: Yes, because of the Quran. There was no charge
against me. My father submits a case for me to the court for
innocence. I'm supposed to go, but they don't let me go. They
put me in Jaber bin Hayan for ten days. After that, it is
written that I have repeated my past behavior, meaning that
they released me, and after ten days I resumed my activities,
so they brought me in again! We demand that they treat us like
they treat the Christians in the days of Habib Al-'Adli, and
nothing more.
Meaning we had no rights. We would ask them to bring animal
rights organizations to come see the situation we were in. In
prison there is a strange nutritional plan. They would bring
us food that was inedible in the first place. We would be
beaten in prison. We would be stripped all the time. The whole
cell is beaten. We sleep on the floor. We had with us people
who had been in prison for 15 years.
Reporter: So how do you feel today?
Muslim #3: Well,
“And Allah hath full power and control over His affairs; but most among mankind know it not.” (Yusuf: 21)
They told us that Allah was unable to defeat Hosni Mubarak,
and now Hosni Mubarak is imprisoned, and Habib Al-'Adli is
imprisoned. And we, by the grace of Allah, are out and he was
imprisoned in our stead.”
Reporter: Allah is the greatest.
Muslim #3: And all praise be to Allah, and the glory is for
Allah, His Messenger, and the believers. Was-Salaamu Alaikum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuhu.
A fourth Muslim: I was in the Sixth of October building, and I
swear by Allah the Almighty, they would prevent us from
reading the Quran. We had nothing in our hands but small
copies of the Quran. Whenever we would open them, they would
ask us to close them, close our eyes, not to speak to our
brothers, and turn our faces the other direction. Beside me,
there was a great Sheikh, I swear by Allah the Almighty, his
hands were dark from being strung up so much, but nothing
happened to me, thanks to our Lord. Another man would be
electrocuted until he screamed, and you would hear his screams
at 11 or 12 at night. One would be electrocuted in his stomach
and another in his head. He was in the cell before us, and I
swear by Allah, they took a Palestinian man from his wife, and
his wife was pregnant. They threw him in there for a month of
torture and misbehavior.
They took me, I swear by Allah, because I had grown my beard;
only this. I was reported by people they put as informants in
every supermarket. In every kiosk you find there is an
informant. In every area there has to be an informant.
Reporter: How long did you stay there?
Muslim #4: I was in Jaber bin Hayan for three days, and
another three days in the Sixth of October building.
Reporter: Did they make you sign anything?
Muslim # 4: No, they didn't make me sign anything, and after
you are released and shave your beard, they are reassured and
leave you alone, meaning he is reassured that you have left
the religion, and there is no problem. He wants you to live
like animals. It was such that when I would quote various
Quranic verses to the officer, he would mock me. I would tell
him any Quranic verse, and he would mock the verse and the
words. Clear blasphemy, I swear by Allah the Almighty, there
are no apostates worse than them.
A fifth Muslim shows the methods of torture: The first thing
was called: The rotisserie. How? Like this [He shows how in
front of the people gathered]. He would suspend me like this,
and leave me like this for hours.
The second type of suspension: he would bind my hands from
behind, and tie them up high for hours. He would hang me on a
gas pipe, and I would be tortured for hours.
Also, the “frontal suspension”. He would tie me thus and leave
me for day and a half. He would go home and sleep for the
night, and then come the next day and interrogate me.
Something else: He would hang me foot by foot, one foot per
day, and the next day he would switch.
And there are other torture machines like the one called the
bride. We are crucified upon it like so. We will bring, Allah
willing. We will bring it, and everyone will see it. We are
crucified, and we take off our clothes, like our mother gave
birth to us, and they torture us everywhere. One half of the
body then the other half...Allah suffices for us, and He is
the best disposer of affairs. Allah suffices for us, and He is
the best disposer of affairs.”
A sixth Muslim: I can honestly say that there is no equal to
Ashraf Ismail in criminality, crimes such as burning copies of
the Quran… One time, I swear by Allah, he entered at night
where the prisoners were and asked, “Why are you still alive
after all these years? If a donkey were imprisoned in your
stead he would be dead by now.”
A brother replied, “We have the Book of Allah, and all praise
be to Allah.”
So in the morning, he gathered all copies of the Quran in a
big bag and brought us all out, and he said, “Turn around like
prisoners,” and he threw the Qurans and burned them.
This is one of his smallest crimes.
One time, he brought out all the prisoners from the wards
other than ours to punish them. There were nearly one hundred
brothers. He distributed them eight by eight, and he started
beating all of them. Then, he brought me and another brother
named Hisham Abdul Mun'im. He was a Kung Fu champion, and his
brother trained the national team. He brought us out while we
were shackled and made us both stand. We were together in the
same cell for years. He made us stand, brought those brothers,
and told them: “Make Tawaaf around this tree and say, “Labaik,
Allahumma Labbaik (At Your service, Allah, at Your service)”,
of course while being beaten. I swear to Allah this happened.
They followed accordingly.
There is a picture of Hosni Mubarak on the walls of the
prison, so he told the brothers to prostrate before it. The
brother who was with me started to say to them: “Fear Allah.
Do not do this.”
So Ashraf Ismail broke the brother's jaw, and so the brothers
prostrated.
Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri, may Allah
protect him:
Our fellow Muslims of Egypt! There are numerous challenges
facing us in Egypt, the most important of which I had
indicated in my previous message. Today, I will elaborate more
upon some of them. Some of these challenges are domestic,
while others are international. Domestically, one of the most
important challenges is judicial and legislative reform.
One of the most important legislative reforms that are
required is the changing of the second article of the
constitution to state that the Islamic Shariah is the sole
source of legislation, and that all articles of the
constitution and laws which oppose it are invalid.
The second article of the current constitution, which states
that, “The principles of Shariah are the primary source of
legislation,” was cunningly drafted to trick the Muslim
people, and it does not result in the application of rulings
of Islam. The article states some principles of Islamic
Shariah, but does not specify its rulings. Principles of
Islamic Shariah, such as “no harming and no being harmed,”
“prevention of harm is given preference to seeking benefit,”
“the requirements for the fulfillment of obligations are
themselves obligations” and “a ruling depends upon the
existence of its decisive factor” and “necessity justifies
using what is forbidden,” may be shared by many man-made laws,
and yet differ in their actual rulings.
Furthermore, this article mentioned that the Shariah is the
principle source, but not the sole source, of legislation.
This means that it is possible for there to be additional
sources of legislation rivaling the Islamic Shariah. This is
the current reality, where the Egyptian law is taken
fundamentally from French law and other non-Islamic sources.
This impotence in the second article of the constitution did
not escape the attention of the judge Abdul Ghafar Muhammad in
his ruling in the largest and most famous case in the history
of the Egyptian judiciary. It was the Great Case of Jihad,
where he mentioned in his arguments:
Regarding the second article, what has settled in the
conscience of the court is that the judgments of Islamic
Shariah are not applied in the Arab Republic of Egypt, and
this is a truth that is extracted from the first truth which
is the obligation of applying Shariah.” Then, he listed
evidence of the absence of Shariah including: "The appearance
of phenomena in Egyptian society that do not agree with the
judgments of Shariah, from resorts in which the deadly sins
are practiced whose administration is licensed by the state,
to alcohol factories whose establishment is licensed by the
state, to places for selling and serving alcohol whose
administration is licensed by the state, to audio, visual, and
print media that publishes and broadcasts that which does not
agree with the rulings of Islamic Shariah, to unveiling women
that goes against what Islam, the official religion of the
state, has decreed.
He also decided in another part:
The truth is that the second article of the constitution,
after its amendment, stated that Islam is the official
religion of the state, Arabic is its official language, and
the principles of Islamic Shariah are the main source of
legislation. But it is sufficient for the court to indicate
that the rulings of the constitution do not agree with the
rulings of Islamic Shariah. What Umar Ahmad Abdul Rahman
decided, as one of the Muslim 'Ulama before the court in the
session on September 3, 1983, is that the constitution clashes
with Islamic Shariah, and is not ruled by it. The articles 86,
107, 108, 109, 112, 130, and 189, give the council of the
people the right of legislating and drafting laws, and in
Islam this is for Allah alone.
Also, article 75 of the constitution does not place being
Muslim and male as conditions for being president of the
government, and this is something that goes against the
unanimous agreement of the scholars of Fiqh.
And article 165 states that the ruling used in the courts of
law does not agree in its style of issuance and its texts with
Islamic Shariah.
He also decided - in another situation - when describing the
current state of Egyptian society prior to the beginning of
the case:
The absence of Allah's Shariah in the land of the Arab
Republic of Egypt has already been proven by the court with
irrefutable evidence, such that it sees no need to repeat it.
But they indicate that the legislative authority has not
finished codifying the rulings of Islamic Shariah, which it
has been doing since 1979. They also indicate the existence of
phenomena in Egyptian society that do not agree with the rules
of Islam. It cannot be imagined that a government whose
religion is Islam can license resorts where obscenity is
committed, licenses factories to produce alcohol, permit the
selling and consumption of alcohol, allow the visual, audio,
and print media to publish and broadcast things which do not
agree with Allah's law, or allow women to uncover themselves
in public in ways which oppose what Islam has clearly defined.
Thus ends the words of Judge Abdul Ghafar Muhammad in the
greatest and most famous case in the history of the Egyptian
judiciary.
It is not appropriate that Judge Abdul Ghafar Muhammad, a
judge who rules with secular law, take notice of this neglect
and impotence, while it goes unnoticed by many of the
preachers and Islamic workers.
The present situation proves to us that since this article of
the constitution was written, to this day, these man-made laws
that oppose Islam have only increased the level of corruption
on earth. This is what the martyred Imam - as we consider him
- Hassan Al-Banna - may Allah have mercy on him – recognized
from Abdul Ghafar Muhammad in his last article entitled: “The
Battle of the Quran, Where is Allah's Ruling?”, in which he
left the summary of his long experience and the product of his
Jihad and struggle for others to come. In it, he confirmed
that the mere statement in the constitution that the official
religion of the state is Islam is not sufficient to make it an
Islamic government.
I will quote the following paragraphs of the martyred Imam -
may Allah have mercy on him – from this article, which is one
of the last things he wrote, due to its importance:
Islam is a religion and state, and there is no doubt in that.
The meaning of this phrase, in clear terms, is that Islam is a
divine law that came with humanitarian teachings and societal
rules which tasked the state with its protection, its spread,
the supervision of its implementation among all of those who
believe in it, and its preaching to those who have not
believed in it yet. It has tasked the state, or in other
words, the ruler who presides and rules over the Muslim body
and Ummah. If the ruler insufficiently protects these rulings,
then he is no longer an Islamic ruler. If the state neglects
this task, then it is no longer an Islamic state. If the
Muslim body or Ummah accepts this neglect and agrees to it,
then it also is no longer Islamic, no matter how much it
claims to be so.
One of the conditions of the Muslim ruler is that he himself
adheres to the tenets of Islam, far removed from what Allah
has forbidden, and not one who commits great sins. This alone
is not sufficient to consider him a Muslim ruler, until the
conditions of his government also oblige him to defend the
rulings of Islam among the Muslims and specify the state's
position in their regards, based on their own position in
regards to the call of Islam.
Then, he says, may Allah have mercy on him:
It is not sufficient for the implementation of the Shariah for
the state to declare in its constitution that it is a Muslim
state and its official religion is Islam; or to rule with the
Shariah in personal matters or those matters of blood, wealth,
or honor which are forbidden by Allah; or for the rulers to
say that they are Muslims whether their personal affairs agree
with these words or oppose them. This is not enough at all.
What is meant by the presence of Allah's laws in a state is
for it to be a state of preaching, and for this feeling to
permeate the rulers no matter how high of a position they
hold, as well as their subjects no matter how diverse their
work may be. This appearance must be a permanent stamp upon
the state which the people use to describe it, known to be as
such in the international gatherings, and portrayed through
all of its actions, connecting to it in words and actions.
Then, he, may Allah have mercy on him, questions:
Where are we regarding all of this? The truth is that we have
nothing to do with this, and all that we have of it is the
text of article 149 of the constitution. Then, what remains is
in the souls of these people of feelings, emotions,
admiration, righteous deeds, and worship. As for the
government and the state, they are in another place.
Then, the martyr Imam - may Allah have mercy on him - calls to
the Muslim Ummah as if it is his bequeathal, saying:
And so, O Ummah, you are responsible for the approval of this
deviation from the ruling of Allah, because you are the source
of its authorities. So resist your rulers and force them to
adhere to Allah's ruling, and wage with them the battle of the
Quran, and you will have victory Allah willing.”
Yes, by Allah, it is the battle of the Quran.
So, O Ummah of the Quran! O supporters and soldiers of the
Quran! Wage the battle of the Quran, and launch in defense of
the Quran and its rulings and Shariah in a preaching,
inciting, and popular uprising that gathers the Ummah of the
Quran in defense of the Quran.
O supporters of Islam, its preachers and soldiers! Be as one
rank and roar in one voice: “We want the rule of the Quran! We
do not want rule without the Quran.”
Form your ranks behind the Quran, rise above your loyalties
and organizations, and remember your loyalty to the Quran.
Adhere around this honorable cause and noble aim, and demand
that the constitution state in clear and absolute wording,
which does not allow tampering and has no loopholes, that the
Islamic Shariah is the sole source of legislation, and that
all other articles of the constitution and laws which oppose
it are invalid.
I call upon all Islamic workers to reap this opportunity
before it is lost, and the secular governments once again
trick the Ummah, and the Ummah is once again forced to wage a
lengthy resistance for decades of trickery, sacrifice,
confrontations, prisons, and persecution.
And one of the complementary elements of this significant
cause is for al-Azhar to be liberated from the control of the
government and its shackles, so that its free people are able
to defend Islam and the Muslims, and its lions are released to
preach the truth, promote the good and forbid the evil. Al-Azhar's
endowments should be recovered, its scholars should select its
head from amongst themselves, not imposed upon them by corrupt
and corrupting governments, and its scholars and callers must
have their own union and assembly that will defend the
religion of the Ummah and its rights, and support those of its
Ulama who are persecuted.
Also, one of the most important domestic challenges is
providing freedom, releasing all political prisoners, and
ending the emergency law.
It is sad that the military council has not released all
political prisoners, and sadly Sheikh Muhammad Al-Zawahiri was
re-arrested after having been released. Why should those who
have been released be re-arrested? These words about Muhammad
Al-Zawahiri are not a personal matter. I have in the previous
episode criticized the military council in several matters
including the case of prisoners after I had received word of
Muhammad Al-Zawihiri's release, but before I had received word
of his arrest once again.
Muhammad Al-Zawahiri was sentenced to the death penalty in
absentia by an improvised military court as part of the policy
of Mubarak in using armed force against the people. Then, he
was captured in the Emirates and extradited to Egypt under the
supervision of America, and he remained in the prison of the
Egyptian intelligence in total isolation from the world for
five years. What bothered the Americans and the Mubarak regime
about Muhammad Al-Zawahiri was that he and his brothers
refused the joke of recantations administered by the
investigators of the State Security through temptation,
terror, blackmail, and the threat of never leaving the prison
until death. Then, Muhammad Al-Zawahiri - after the defiant,
honorable, and mighty revolution of the Egyptian people - was
released in the second wave of political prisoners. It was the
duty of the leadership of the armed forces to seek pardon for
the injustice that befell them in the military courts, but
sadly, Muhammad Al-Zawahiri was arrested once again. His
arrest once more raises infinitely significant questions:
- Is there is an American “veto” on releasing certain
prisoners?
- Is America still the one that has the final word in Egypt?
- Does his second arrest confirm what I mentioned in the
previous message that the military council has imposed a state
of emergency for six months so that America can arrange its
affairs, and so that the military council can arrest whomever
it wishes without charge of trial?
- Why are those who were released arrested again, and why are
many people being arrested through the emergency law, yet the
same law is not used to arrest Hosni Mubarak and his family?
- Why is the emergency law applied upon those who challenged
the injustice of Mubarak's regime, yet is not applied upon the
greatest criminal in Egypt?
- Why did the Attorney General not call Mubarak for an
investigation, and why was his money not frozen until two
months after his removal from power?
- Was he given the chance to arrange his affairs?
- Does this not confirm what I mentioned in a previous message
that the Attorney General Abdul Majid Mahmoud is a gang member
of the previous regime?
How can this not be, when he was nurtured in the state
security and rose to the position of Attorney General due to
his hostility against political dissenters, especially
Islamists? The Egyptian people in their revolution put much
pressure to end the tragedy of political arrest, but the
military council has once again repeated this tragedy.
This repetition of political arrests is a very dangerous
matter, one that proves that the corrupt regime still exists,
and that the widespread mentality that was in existence before
Mubarak's isolation still remains in power. I do not have an
exact figure about the number of political prisoners still in
prison, especially those from Islamic parties, but they number
in the hundreds and maybe in the thousands. Some of them
suffer from significant and numerous ailments, figures such as
Sheikh Nabil Al-Maghribi, Sheikh Ahmad Salamah, Sheikh 'Adel 'Awadh
Shahito, Sheikh Marjan Mustafa Salem, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Aswani,
and many others who were barred by Mubarak and then by the
military council from receiving proper treatment, just as the
people of Gaza are barred from it.
Recording of an interview with a
released prisoner:
There is no bathroom, and they do not give us more than two
bottles of water per day, and therefore, we do not wash for
prayers because the water is only sufficient for drinking. The
brothers were fasting daily and using a bottle for drinking
and a bottle to wash their underwear. The dirt was horrible
and so were the lice. We had many diseases.
They did an experiment on us, and I will not mention the names
of the brothers upon whom the experiment was done. Brothers
died from sexual assault. When a brother would get sick, they
would give him antibiotics. Allah is my witness, and the
scholars have agreed that whoever uses Allah as his witness on
what is false then he has committed infidelity, so I will not
blaspheme by lying. I swear by Allah that they would empty the
antibiotic capsule and put inside it some sort of drug so that
the brother would then sleep. They would take him to the
investigators who would sexually assault him, and when the
brother would wake up he would see that he was sexually
assaulted. Two of the brothers went on a hunger strike until
they died, one of them from Alexandria. They did not eat until
they died, I swear, and the department would come because of
the topic of Ahmad Suleiman.
Host: Can you remember the names of the officers?
Yes, they are still around, and I did not forget, thanks be to
Allah.
Host: What is the name of the warden of the prison?
His name was Muhammad, and Waleed Farooq Al-Nadi is the head
of the whole affair. Walid Farooq Al-Nadi is still the warden
of Abu Za'bal prison. This man gave to the regime what no one
else did.
A brother named Ahmad Abdul Rahman from Fayoom is also there.
He was arrested because of the case of the Shawqi’s. He became
ill with hemorrhoids. He continued to bleed for three years,
and no one treated him. Ahmad Abdul Rahman Al Shawqi bled
until he died of dehydration, may Allah have mercy on him.
Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri, may Allah
protect him:
Until when will this injustice continue? Will this never end?
And when speaking of political prisoners, we remember those
arrested in the prisons of the Coptic churches such as Camilla
Shehata and her sisters, whose cases rocked Egyptian society
in the era of Mubarak. It is not possible for the Egyptian
people to rise up for freedom while these sisters remain
deprived of it. I hope that the intellects will find a
solution for this case that remains a flaming ember under the
ashes.
Before I move on from discussing the prisoners and those who
were arrested, I wish to direct a message to my brother
prisoners who were released. I repeat my congratulations to
them for their freedom, and remind them that this freedom is
another trial with which they will be tested. Just as they
carried for decades the responsibility of resisting this
corrupt regime, they must now bear the responsibility of the
call for a proper one. They must spare no effort in the call
to empower Shariah, recover lost rights, and support the
oppressed and unjustly treated. I ask Allah the Exalted to
grant them success so that their release is a support for
Islam, justice, and those who are unjustly treated in Egypt,
in our Arab and Islamic world, and everywhere else in this
world.
The third significant challenge that I wish to mention is the
issue of social justice, and if you wish to be more precise,
the “social injustice” from which many Egyptians suffer. It is
not acceptable for most Egyptians to live on a few dollars a
day, while there are certain groups that swim in billions.
A popular campaign must be launched in Egypt to restore the
rights of its people, especially the poor. This campaign
should seek to excise social injustice, poverty, and need from
Egypt. The Islamic call should consider the cause of social
justice one of its top priorities. The Prophet, may Allah's
prayers and peace be upon him, said:
“He who is full while his neighbor beside him goes hungery is not a believer.”
The obligation of Zakat must be revived, the obligation that
the great Abu Bakr As-Siddiq and the companions - may Allah be
pleased with them - had waged war to protect. The stealing of
the fortunes of Egypt must be stopped. One of its clearest of
examples is the export of gas to Israel, which the Egyptian
judiciary had ruled as invalid. Yet to this day, the military
council still exports it to Israel.
As for the challenges on the international level, one of the
most important is the relationship of Egypt with America and
Israel, and the issue of the siege of Gaza. Here, I would like
to direct a salute to the youth of the revolution who refused
to meet with Hillary Clinton. This is a great stand that
deserves applause and praise. It is a stand that shows the
youth's awareness of the crimes of America and its political
hypocrisy, and I hope that the youth will remember the
description of Saad Al-Din Al-Shazly, upon whom the crowds in
Tahrir Square prayed the funeral prayer in absentia, of the
American and Western campaign against our Muslim Ummah as the
eighth Crusader war, a campaign that targets our values,
religion, morals, freedom, resources and country, and which
supported and continues to support the corrupt rulers and the
oppressive regimes in our lands.
The youth that exposed the political hypocrisy of America and
its role in suppressing the Egyptian people must continue
their march towards liberation and independence, liberation
that is only achieved with the liberation of man from the
enslavement of man, and the fulfillment of the Tawheed of
Allah, the Creator, the Provider, the Giver of Life, the
Bringer of Death, the Judge, and the Just.
Man must be liberated from the enslavement of man, so that
none is feared but Allah, none is obeyed but Him, and only His
Shariah is followed, so that the horizons of political,
mental, and social freedoms open up before him.
The youth must continue their march so that Egypt returns to
be sovereign, independent, and free, and fulfills its known
role in the defense of the Muslim and Arab Ummah and the rest
of the oppressed peoples of the world. Egypt will not return
to this role unless it cuts off its evil, shameful
relationship with Israel.
I know that the military council and its ministry are too weak
and incapable of doing this. How can this not be so, when the
leaders of the military council are Mubarak’s men and his
agents who changed the creed of war of the Egyptian military,
such that it could no longer see that its primary enemy was
Israel? Instead, it came to see its primary enemy as its own
people, imposing the rule of the military courts over them and
the Muslim Ummah, to which it subjected its forces in the
Crusader war against Islam in the name of terrorism.
As for the matter of the siege of Gaza, I do not expect - and
I hope that my expectations will be wrong - the military
council to lift the siege from it. Its foreign minister, who
was educated in the school of “Camp David,” has been in power
for more than two months. Where have all his heroic statements
that the siege of Gaza is against international humanitarian
law gone?
Break for recorded video excerpts from
Palestine:
An ill Palestinian youth: I have a brain tumor. This tumor is
from 6 to 8 cm in size, as the doctors told me. The tumor
requires an excision because it is placing pressure on the
optical nerve and as well as those related to hearing and the
likes. When it is removed, all my senses will return to
normal. The pain that I suffer today is dizziness and
headaches that come during strenuous work, meaning I can walk
here and there, but I can’t do heavy work.
I went to the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but in the current
situation, there is no medicine in the hospitals, and I have
been waiting for 7 to 8 months now with all my papers ready
waiting for the Rafah Crossing to be opened.”
Spokesman:
There is a list of over one thousand patients who were
presented to the Egyptian authorities to be allowed to exit
through the Rafah Crossing, and all these cases are urgent. We
are not talking about normal cases or those who are looking
for a better opportunity, we are talking about those who need
special treatment.”
The ill Palestinian youth: Today I will go to the Crossing,
but where is the person who will open the Crossing? The pain
increases terribly, the sick are there day and night. Most of
the sick have left. Many others went home. I can't go home.
What can I do other than wait...my pain increases...my pain
and anguish increase.”
News report: The Washington Post has discovered that Egypt has
agreed to spend large amounts of money to purchase technology
to detect tunnels along its border with Gaza, while a report
by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Refugee
Affairs counted that twenty eight tunnels had been destroyed
during only two days in August 2008 at the hands of the
Egyptian authorities. Twenty seven Palestinians were killed in
the same year due to the collapse of tunnels for several
reasons, including Egyptian military operations.”
An elderly Palestinian: The Egyptians, if they sense we are
there, they would come with a tractor...on the line, and they
would fill the tunnel with gas and kill us… an operation. They
would execute us immediately and kill us, meaning, there is no
chance. If they sense there is an eye or anything there, then
immediately they would get the gas and water and pump it into
the tunnel. Whoever is in the tunnel would die.”
Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri, may Allah
protect him:
This is where the role of the Ummah and its masses comes into
play, in pressuring the government of the military council
that has resumed exporting gas to Israel, despite the ruling
of the Egyptian judiciary to stop it, while at the same time
it continues to blockade Gaza, despite its people's call to
lift it. Is it to be that in Israel the wealth and treasures
of Egypt are sold for the cheapest of prices, while for our
people in Gaza there is nothing but blockade and restrictions
in all forms?! The Ummah must mobilize, and the masses must
put pressure on the military council that only moves when
pressurized.
I call upon the Egyptian masses for a widespread and popular
outburst of rage that will mobilize the marches and
demonstrations from the different parts of Egypt towards the
Rafah Crossing to break it and remove the barriers between us
and our fellow Muslims in Gaza.
These were some of the significant aspects of the desired
reform that I thought I should mention.
As for the third message, it is to our fellow Muslims in
Syria:
I salute the lions of Syria and its honorable and free,
quoting these stanzas from Ahmad Shawqi:
[Poetry]
I send you peace that is softer than a breeze *** And not
enough tears, O Damascus
The excuses of the cowards and the talkers *** This is an
indescribable big affliction
Those killed give life to others *** And those captured
sacrifice for and redeem others
Freedom has a red door *** On which every bloodied hand is
knocking
I call upon our people in Sham, the land of Ribat and Jihad,
to continue their resistance and defense against this unjust,
oppressive, and arrogant regime that kills its people and that
flees from its own land, the regime which has fled from the
Golan, carrying out massacres from Hama to Daraa.
O lions of the Sham! Continue your march, revolution and
uprising against this regime which participates with America
in its war against Islam in the name of terrorism, so that it
remains silent about shedding your blood and plundering your
resources. Do not be fooled by the wavering statements of
America about your uprising. America is the one that handed
over your brothers to that tyrannical, violent, and corrupting
regime to torture and punish them.
Patience, O lions of the Sham! The land has begun to tremble
under the feet of these titanic Tawagheet. Have Patience, our
Ummah everywhere! America has gone through four disasters in
the past ten years, beginning with the attacks of New York,
Washington, and Pennsylvania, then its defeat in Iraq, and
here it is being defeated in Afghanistan. And the fourth: The
commencement of the fall of its proxies like the dry leaves of
autumn in Tunisia and Egypt, and tomorrow in Libya, Yemen,
Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula.
“Seest thou not how thy Lord dealt with
the 'Ad (people), of the (city of) Iram, with lofty pillars,
the like of which were not produced in (all) the land? And
with the Thamud (people), who cut out (huge) rocks in the
valley? And with Pharaoh, lord of stakes? (All) these
transgressed beyond bounds in the lands, and heaped therein
mischief (on mischief). Therefore did thy Lord pour on them a
scourge of diverse chastisements: For thy Lord is (as a
Guardian) on a watch-tower.” (Al-Fajr: 6-14)
And our final prayers are all praise be to Allah, Lord of the
worlds, and may Allah's prayers and peace be upon our master
Muhammad, his family, and his companions.
Was-Salaamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuhu.
As-Sahab Foundation for Media Production
19 Jumada al-Akhirah 1432
May 22, 2011
Translated by:
The Global Islamic Media Front
Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers
Submitted by a Mujahid