Egyptians held at Guantanamo Bay will challenge their detention in US courts, reports Gihan Shahine "Tell mother to pray for my release." So wrote 27-year-old Sherif El-Mashad, an Egyptian detained at the US military base in Guantanamo, on a Red Cross postcard that was delivered to his uncle in Italy. "I did nothing to deserve imprisonment and they have no charges against me... I'm probably only here for interrogation and will be released, only God knows when." Almost three years later El-Mashad remains among the estimated 583 detainees from 42 countries held at Guantanamo for allegedly posing a "potential threat to US security". It is unclear exactly how many Egyptians are held at Guantanamo. According to official reports there are five -- Alaa Abdel-Maqsoud Mazrou, Reda Fadel El- Weleli, Egyptian-Australian Mamdouh Habib, Adel Fattouh El-Gazzar and Sherif El-Mashad -- held at the US military base, though unofficial sources suggest many more. The families of three other Egyptians -- Ahmed Omar Abdel-Kafi, Youssef El-Dayyan and Eyad El-Sayed -- claim that their relatives are being held while Justice in Exile, a charity devoted to helping people held in Guantanamo, believes that the number of Egyptian detainees may total 30. The charity, though, has received no name list or family contact information for any Egyptian detainees other than El-Mashad and El- Gazzar. "We would dearly love to get in touch with the families of Egyptian detainees," Clive Stafford-Smith, director of Justice in Exile, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Smith, a US-British human rights activist, says he was provoked into taking action by Washington's "hypocritical attitude" in claiming "to fight for the rule of law, and then immediately take people to Cuba as a pretext to deny them any human rights". "Hypocrisy is the yeast of hatred and when one behaves like that it is no wonder that others come to despise you for being two-faced," says Smith. Many of the prisoners in Guantanamo, Smith says, "seem to be totally innocent, and those involved in fighting have the right to be treated according to the Geneva Conventions, and the US has, I am ashamed to say, refused to do this". According to Smith many of the prisoners were not engaged in the conflict at all but were abducted by local Afghans keen to collect the $5,000 bounty that the US was offering for "foreign Taliban". US claims that Guantanamo prisoners were "enemy combatants" who were all captured "on the battlefield" in Afghanistan are, Smith says, "pure fiction", citing two prisoners abducted in Gambia and six seized in Bosnia. "I know nothing specific about the Egyptians but would be surprised if their cases were different from the other prisoners," Smith said. El-Mashad may prove a case in point. The main bread-winner of his family he went to work in Italy in 1997. Three years later he was granted permanent residency, returning to Egypt three times to visit his family in 2000. "My son was very close to his family," said El-Mashad's mother, teacher Wafaa El-Arabi. "He was moderately religious -- regular in his prayers and kind to the poor." In July 2001 El-Mashad was invited by a friend to Afghanistan where he did voluntary relief work and also worked in a clothing business, according to his mother. On 30 December 2001 he was caught on the Afghan-Pakistan border during a failed attempt to flee the country after the outbreak of war. "If I ever knew a war would break out in Afghanistan," wrote El-Mashad, "I would never have gone there in the first place -- but it is God's will." El-Arabi only heard about her son's detention after the arrival of El-Mashad's first postcard to his uncle in Italy in August 2002. "That was the shock of my life," she said. "My son has no criminal record in either Egypt or Italy. He is innocent, innocent." El-Gazzar's family is equally frustrated. "My husband is the father of four children and we need to know why he has been incarcerated in Guantanamo," said El- Gazzar's wife, who asked to have her maiden name withheld. The 39-year-old accountant, she said, went on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia on 27 August 2000 and then decided to stay and search for a job. "My husband used to call regularly until he suddenly disappeared in 2001," she said without further explanation. "Almost a year later we received a hand-delivered Red Cross postcard from him saying he was in Guantanamo." According to El-Arabi "the Ministry of Foreign affairs did not seem to be bothered and the Red Cross would not give any information or help beyond providing an extremely-slow courier service." Following the 28 June US Supreme Court ruling granting Guantanamo prisoners the right to challenge their captivity in US courts the families of El-Gazzar and El-Mashad have given power of attorney to Smith and the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAAP), who will represent the two. "We can now promise to provide lawyers for everyone in Guantanamo should we receive permission from their families," Smith said. He does, however, urge Middle East governments to increase diplomatic pressure to have their citizens repatriated "because prolonged legal process may not be what will get most people out". "Political pressure right now may result in the release of a large number of people since this is all politics and justice has very little to do with it." Mohamed Ali Zarie, director of the HRAAP, has written to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Embassy in Cairo pressing for the repatriation of Egyptian prisoners in Guantanamo and requesting access to El-Mashad and El- Gazzar. But, Zarie says, if the government is pressing for the repatriation of El- Gazzar it is only to imprison him again after he was found guilty, in absentia, of belonging to the outlawed Al-Waad group. "If I get no response to my petitions I will take the matter to court. We are the only government that does not seem to be pressuring for the repatriation of detainees or to defend their human rights." Other sources, though, claim the Egyptian government is conducting high-level talks with the US to repatriate those detained.
