Shady Habash, 24, filmmaker and cinematographic, died inside Cairo’s infamous Tora prison complex, from “health issues not yet specified,” according to announcements from family and friends.
He was imprisoned in March 2018 for directing a music video that mocked Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. The video titled “balaha”,was for the exiled Egyptian rock musician Ramy Essam who lives now in Sweden, included demands for Sisi to leave after four years have spent since he took the power, “may the Lord take you we all pray, with all your gang boys in that darkest jail, I hope you rot in such a place.”
Following the release of five involved in the case, Habash and Mustafa Gamal, who helped Essam verify his Facebook page, remained in prison on pretrial detention. “He should have been released after two years,” said a representative from the Cairo-based Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, who asked not to be named for their own safety. “Instead he was forced to remain in custody with no legal grounds. He died in jail, where he shouldn’t have been in the first place. No artist should be in jail for his work.”
Essam wrote on his website that “Shady didn’t have anything to do with the content of the song.” He also published Habash’s last letter from prison, headed, “Prison doesn’t kill, loneliness does. I need your support not to die.”
Since the military coup in July 2013 and the massive crack down on political oppositions, journalists, activists and 954 Egyptians have died in detention locations including prisons for health care neglection or torture, according to a report released in December 2019.
There is also growing concern over unsanitary and unsafe mass detentions inside Egyptian prisons, reflecting fears about the spread of Covid-19 in places of detention around the world. Prominent activist Alaa Abdel al-Fattah, re-imprisoned last September, recently began a hunger strike in protest at prison conditions. The Egyptian authorities, who suspended prison visits in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, have been criticised for widespread and deadly medical neglect of prisoners, including former president Mohamed Morsi, who collapsed and died in court in June 2019.