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Save our brother from torture jail
YOU ARE HEREBY CHARGED WITH BEING TOO FABULOUS: Panti Bliss, aka Rory O’Neill, is serenaded by the Garda Band as they made their Dublin LGBT Pride Parade debut on Saturday, marching alongside up to 40,000 revellers including representatives of the main political parties and firms such as Facebook and ESB, as pride parades took place around the world
ElTon: JEsus would baCk gay marriagE – P9
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THE sister of an Irish teenager held by joanne ahern in an Egyptian jail without charge for nearly a year has called on the Gov- of Foreign Affairs Joe Costello ernment to ‘take serious action’ strongly rejected this, saying the before his mass trial next month. Government had ‘pulled out all the Ibrahim Halawa’s sister, Somaia, stops’ for the Dublin-born-and-raised said her 18-year-old brother is being teenager and has ‘sought his release told by police officers that he will from detention’. ‘face a hard sentence’. He added that the Egyptian authoriLast month, 183 Muslim Brother- ties have said the teenager ‘has charghood members and supporters were es to answer’, and the Irish Governsentenced to death in an Egyptian ment cannot intervene directly with mass trial. the judiciary there. Ms Halawa also said her brother Ibrahim Halawa, along with three had been physically and mentally tor- of his sisters, was arrested in Egypt’s tured to get a confession from him. capital Cairo in August after taking She added that before three Al refuge in a mosque during a day of Jazeera journalists were jailed last protest against the ousting of former week for up to ten years, her family president Mohammed Morsi. hoped her brother’s nationality would His sisters were released, but Ibrabe taken into account. him faces a mass trial, has not had full Saying that she is ‘hopeful’ about access to legal representation and does her brother’s fate, she said: ‘I really not know the charges against him. The hope that the Government takes seri- maximum penalty is ten years. ous action before the Saying the circumJuly 16 trial because stances were ‘very difonce my brother is senficult’, Mr Costello also tenced, it’s over. There’s referred to a meeting nothing we can do.’ between US secretary She also said the Govof state John Kerry and ernment never formally Egyptian president Abrequested her brother be del Fatah al-Sisi in released and questioned which they discussed if it is not prioritising ‘the essential role of a Ibrahim’s case because vibrant civil society, he ‘doesn’t look Irish’. free press, rule of law However, Junior Minand due process in a deister at the Department Held for a year: Ibrahim mocracy’.
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