What are the US citizens in Egyptian dungeons paying the price of?

We had said that one must admit that the struggle US President Trump has displayed for Pastor Brunson, the US citizen who was tried and imprisoned in Türkiye after being determined to have cooperated with terrorist organizations, is truly moving on behalf of US citizens.

US citizens should be proud of this, of course. But if this sensitivity is really going to be shown for all US citizens...

If knowing that carrying one's country's passport will protect one everywhere, and feeling that one's state will stand behind one wherever in the world one is, does not give a country's citizen pride and confidence, what will?

In fact, not only for the USA, but the passport of every country that calls itself a state must be able to provide this confidence and pride. To the extent that it does, the contract, organic relationship and attachment between citizen and state will be strong.

Is this really the case for the USA? Does the Brunson case alone suffice to show how strong the US passport is? To test this, we also drew attention to at least 20 US citizens held in Egyptian prisons. These prisoners held in Egypt have no trial process taking place in everyone's sight, as in Türkiye, as in Brunson's case. The prisons they are held in do not have conditions in which prisoners' rights are observed to the fullest, as in Türkiye. When their health conditions do not permit, they are not even offered the option of house arrest.

One of them is Mustafa Kassem. He came to Cairo in July 2013 for a family visit from New York, where he had lived for years. Since he was 48 at that time, he is now 53. In those same days Abdel Fattah al-Sisi carried out his well-known military coup, overthrowing Muhammad Morsi, who had appointed him as defense minister, on the grounds that he was not sharing power enough with the opposition and was becoming authoritarian, and sat in his seat. From the moment he sat down, he began establishing the most authoritarian, the most brutal and the most tyrannical dictatorship Egyptian history has recorded.

Although the Egyptian people, who had not yet been able to stomach this coup, were wholly on their feet, and demonstrations inviting back to the line of legitimacy against the coup were being held. Sisi was able to withstand these demonstrations for 40 days. At the end of forty days he carried out an intervention that ended with the deaths of thousands of people in the bloodiest and most savage operation Egyptian history has recorded. The field hospital of the square where the killed were gathered was demolished with construction machinery and set on fire, and the corpses were burned. Everyone who could be rounded up among those who had not died in the square was arrested at random.

Mustafa Kassem is at a shopping mall at a point far from Rabaa Square, with his brother-in-law. They find themselves in the middle of people fleeing. When the police stop them and ask for ID, the brother-in-law, though carrying a US passport like him, showed his Egyptian ID and got by. He, however, thinking it would give him an advantage, showed his US passport, and what happened happened. They immediately laid him face down on the ground right there, landed the first beating and took him away. They took him without any other evidence. From that day to this he has been trying to prove he has nothing to do with the events. Finally, together with 738 other detainees, they sentenced him to 15 years in prison for the crime of opposing the Sisi government.

Mustafa Kassem is not from the Ikhwan. He has no connection with the Ikhwan, but these things have befallen him merely because he happened to be there. Being in the prison where he has been held for 5 years is itself complete torture. There is no proper water. In conditions with vermin, rats, snakes and scorpions, in an environment where the toilet is also inside the cell, it is not possible to live long while preserving one's health. Never mind winter; in the hot days of summer there is no measure whatsoever to cool them.

The US citizen Mustafa Kassem already suffers from many illnesses, from diabetes to his liver. The Egyptian prison officials, who do not even allow him to put his insulin medications in a refrigerator, are turning a blind eye to his slowly dying. As a result, Mustafa Kassem recently began a hunger strike. This hunger strike has reduced him to skin and bones, yet no one hears his voice. Mustafa Kassem is going rapidly toward death.

Never mind the other 100 thousand or so Egyptians deemed fit to live in these conditions. Perchance you may think that one US citizen is worth all Egyptians. But at least 20 US citizens live here, Mr. Trump.

That all these US citizens are pro-Morsi is not even based on sufficiently proven claims. There are also those with no connection at all, like Mustafa Kassem, but what is it that requires you to take the risk of devaluing the US passport a US citizen carries this much merely because the accusation is made by your ally Sisi?

Or should we accept this situation as a sign that you are practicing serious discrimination among US citizens?

When the US citizen is "a good Christian," all of America is mobilized to "save Private Brunson," but when he is "a good Muslim," do you think "let him see what comes to him"?

Where is that legendary, egalitarian US citizenship?

Where is the power of the US passport?

There is actually an opportunity to prove that this legend still has a counterpart in reality. Senator John McCain and Pence had earlier stepped in for Mustafa Kassem, but it remained a very weak intervention. It will suffice for Trump to show a very small part of the sensitivity he showed for Pastor Brunson to save Kassem. And not only him, but the other prisoners suffering the same conditions in Egyptian dungeons too.

Who knows, perhaps once they are free they will have the chance to tell the outside world who is in what condition in Egyptian dungeons.

Who knows, is this not perhaps the real reason for the US government's indifference toward them?

Let 20 US citizens be sacrificed too to the Middle East's new-generation dictator, is that it?

CONDOLENCES

Indeed we belong to God and indeed to Him we shall return. My father-in-law Hacımehmet Ayyıldızoğlu, who had been receiving treatment in intensive care for some time, has returned to the mercy of the Truth. I thank all friends who called to offer condolences.