Aisha Abd El-Hafeez Ali

Aisha Abd El-Hafeez Ali

Aisha Abd El-Hafeez and her friends were arrested in front of the Fifth assembly Court on March 30, 2014 as they went to check on their friend Karima Al-Serfi. They were stopped by a security officer. He asked them for their ID cards and accused them of trying to photograph the court, although they did not have any cameras with them. He searched them and then took them to the New Cairo police station. She was presented before the prosecution and charged with attempting to blow up the court, assaulting an officer by beating, attempting to burn police cars, belonging to Muslim Brotherhood cadres at Al-Azhar University, and belonging to a terrorist group. She was detained pending investigations. She was released on June 18, 2014 and on September 11, 2014 the case was dismissed. She was subjected to: -Violations on the day of Al Qanatir massacre. She said ” We were surprised when the central security soldiers and Commandos raided our toilet. They asked us to leave the bathroom. Although my colleague Fatima had a heart disease, they didn’t give me the chance to help her leave with us. One of them shouted at me saying, “Get out” and beat me despite my tiredness, and removed my Niqab, and then they made us all stand against the wall, and he started beating us on our backs. He even aggressively hit El Hagga Naima, the old lady. When he approached her, she was saying: ”Son! Would you let me sit, I am like your mother”. Therefore, he made her look at the wall and horribly insulted her. The guards searched us and their hands touched every area in our bodies. This search is just harassment. The guards asked us to take off any clothes we are wearing under the white pre-trial detention cloak. Additionally, the place isn’t well-hidden and it is very easy for the officers to see us. When it was the turn of our colleague Asma Mukhtar, a 19-year-old student at Ain Shams University, she objected to this humiliating search method, saying, “I am a girl and what you are doing is wrong”. She was beaten, bitten, and her hair was pulled by the guards. Each two of us were placed in a criminal ward, except me, who was placed alone in the toilet of a drug ward, exactly on a filthy floor surrounded by all types of insects and around 16 cats were hovering around me in a dark place. In addition to the beating “the security officers banged our heads on the wall and kicked us”, which caused a few of them to bleed.