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Ibrahim Halawa acquited(mod warning in op-Heed it)
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Lucinda Creighton doesn’t believe his story.
https://twitter.com/lcreighton/status/926574051891515394
Fair play to her at least one politician is not buying into all the Halawa's lies, their stories are changing more than Kardashians change rappers
I will probably be accused of being racist now I am not believing the lies
I don't think IH did himself or his family are favours on LLS as more lies exposed0 -
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There was a good piece in the Irish Times last week that described those consular efforts in some detail. It also described how after the initial period, DFA decided to involve the family in their efforts and the result was a good working relationship.
The definition of "Good Working Relationship" is open to interpretation I'd suggest ?
However up until the end of August this year,the Irish Government's best efforts were still not of a satisfactory level....
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/state-must-act-if-ibrahim-halawa-not-freed-on-september-18th-family-1.3204968She said if the next court date in the case , September 18th, passed without his release and return to Ireland, the Government must initiate proceedings against Egypt at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on the basis that her brother’s human rights were being violated and Egyptian commitments given to the Irish Government breached.
The Irish State fully supported and assisted Ibrahim Halawa,from the very first days of his arrest,incarceration and trial,there was nothing more it,or any other Government could have done to have him released.
It MUST be continually restated that the Irish Government and it's Consular Staff in Egypt went FAR beyond the boundaries of reason as had been the norm up until this case.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/ibrahim-halawa-the-inside-story-1.2310182That Friday – August 16th, 2013 – Egypt was ablaze. In Firhouse, south Dublin, where she was tending to her two young children, Nosayba Halawa kept an anxious eye on the rolling TV coverage of demonstrations that were convulsing the country of her birth. Nosayba’s sisters Somaia (27), Fatima (23) and Omaima (21), and her brother Ibrahim (17), had departed for Egypt in late June.
It is only now,that Ibrahim is free,that the heretofore ignored elements begin to bear scrutiny...Ibrahim’s parents were born in Egypt, and their extended families live there. So it was common for Ibrahim and his siblings to travel there in summer to spend time with their cousins. Ibrahim had just finished his Leaving Cert when he and his three sisters flew to Cairo in late June. He would later say that he had wanted to go on a post-Leaving Cert holiday to Spain with his friends, but he was asked to accompany his sisters to Egypt. “I wish I’d gone to Spain,” Ibrahim told a visitor last year.
"He was asked"...presumably to act as some form of acceptable chaperone to his (older) sisters ?
It is of little importance,as it appears his sisters were/are somewhat more politically active than Ibrahim himself ?The Halawas are a religious family; Sheikh Hussein, the Imam of Dublin’s Clonskeagh mosque, is the most prominent Muslim cleric in Ireland.
The sense of liberation that followed the ousting of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 had been intoxicating, Somaia says. “In Egypt, for once in your life, you had a voice. In Mubarak’s regime, when we went for a holiday, you were not allowed to talk about any politics. Everything was okay. Mubarak was fantastic. No poor people. The economy was perfect.
“And then you go to Egypt and all of a sudden everyone is talking about politics, everyone is talking about Morsi, everyone is giving out in the media. You felt this freedom.”
So,much of the "suddenness" surrounding the Halawa children's decision to address a rally,could well have had it's origins far earlier,around his 15th birthday,if that timeline is to be believed ?
It is surely rare indeed,for ANY Irish citizen involved in a fracas in a Foreign State to be able to engage in personal telephone contact with a serving Ambassador (this revelation continues to puzzle me to this day
),yet here we have exactly that...It was 3am when news of the stand-off reached Isolde Moylan, who was then Ireland’s ambassador to Egypt. She spoke by phone to Omaima, who told her “thugs” were surrounding the mosque and were “trying to kill us”. (Omaima repeated that message in a live interview on Al-Jazeera from inside the mosque.)
What developed from this initial contact remains at the very core of what ensued over the following 4 years...The ambassador advised the siblings to stay together. “I’ll do what I can to get you out safely,” she said. Irish officials also suggested that the Halawas not draw attention to themselves by giving any more interviews.
Working her contacts through the early hours of Saturday morning, Moylan eventually reached a brigadier who ran the international cooperation section at the interior ministry.
Moylan says she and the Irish Government were looking for the Halawas to be guaranteed safe passage out of the mosque. The officer asked if the Halawas wanted to leave; through Moylan they confirmed they did. The brigadier called Moylan back a few minutes later. “That’s settled,” he said.
The situation was indeed becoming fraught,not alone due to the dreaded oppressive Egyptian Military,but also "the enraged Locals",a grouping which has continually been ignored throughout the Halawa's campaign.What happened next remains in dispute two years on. Irish officials say safe passage was guaranteed to the ambassador and the Irish government, and that it would have been guaranteed to the Halawas in person. Under the arrangement, the siblings would be taken from the scene, searched, have their records checked and then be released.
Irish officials say two groups had already left the mosque and that the deal was explained to the Halawas, but that their phone kept ringing out when the brigadier tried to call them to arrange their exit.
However, the family says there was no such thing as safe passage, given the confusion at the scene and the fact that the mosque was surrounded by police and angry local residents.
And there it began....The Government insists safe passage was an option. “I have no doubt that the safe passage would have been observed,” says one Dublin-based official,who suggests the siblings may have come under pressure from others inside the mosque not to accept the offer. The official says that at no point was the ambassador asked to come to the mosque as part of the arrangement.
At about 2pm the next day, security forces entered the mosque and remaining protesters were escorted out. The Halawas, with several hundred others, had been inside for 17 hours. The siblings were split into two groups and put in police vans.
It looks like even back in 2015,the Irish Government had a good handle on the outcome...The most benign scenario, the Government believes, is that Ibrahim is acquitted or receives a relatively light sentence that accords with the period he has already spent in prison.
Thankfully,it seems that the Irish Governments "good working relationship" with Egypt prevailed.
With any luck,there may even be more than one Book to be written about this period...;)Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay (1812-1889)
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