Empower Hour： Majed El Shafie's Torture
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
172.53665
Summary
In this episode, I talk about the persecution of Christians in Egypt and how Christians are persecuted as a minority in the country. I also talk about my own experience of being tortured by the police and how I managed to escape.
Transcript
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i was born from a muslim family back home in egypt when i was born i was born i found big huge
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library in my bedroom full of books about freedom of religion about human rights uh many of you
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doesn't know that there is many christians today is persecuted in egypt they are in prison between
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six thousand to seven thousand you know christians egyptians they are in prison right now just
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because they are christian many of you know that maybe you don't know that you cannot build that
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church in egypt you can build bar discotheque but not a church you know in canada anybody is is free
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to build a church a mosque a temple all of this persecution that happened to the christian
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minority make me wonder as a muslim young man why this is happening to the christians let me put it
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this way you do not persecute somebody unless you are afraid from the truth that they can we have
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to ask for justice we have to create a human rights organization underground to fight for the
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minority rights to fight for the christian's rights in egypt we started this organization underground
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young kids uh only maybe seven people in two years time we become 20 28 000 in one organization
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we build churches underground as i said by the law you cannot build the church
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uh we we establish a newspaper to ask the egyptian government to give us our rights and equal rights
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as a minority this all led to august 15 1998 i was in my office in downtown cairo and i heard knock on
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my door 1 30. i went to open the door somebody asked for a name i told him nobody here by this name
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you have the wrong address after i closed the door by two seconds
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five soldiers two officers they came they broke the door they they kidnapped me from my office to
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a police station school is only police station behind the egyptian parliament and they interrogated
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me there and they said we know who you are we know the organization that you build the book that you
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wrote the church that your buildings all around the country the one thing we don't know who is the rest of
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your team we know that you are the head of the group but we don't know who else working i told them i
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don't know which team and which organization and if you know everything about me why are you asking
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next day they transfer me to a prison it's called abu zaba prison for the people who doesn't know
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abu zaba prison we call it in the middle east hell on earth is where the people go there and they never
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come out in a matter of fact there's only maybe five names of people came out of this prison alive
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and i'm one of the five 25 of the space of this prison is underground it's like graves or basement
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that's where they keep the believers and they torture them and i went there for seven days for
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me it was like 700 years every day the torture level increases the officers that torture you
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they're always wearing a mask so you cannot see their face they always call each other
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by numbers not by not by name so you don't know the reading there is always military doctor standing
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behind you this military doctor is his job not to make sure that you don't have the pain
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his job that you're conscious to the pain you are if you lost your conscience he wakes you up
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so you are in more pain day number one they shave the hair of my head and they have two big containers
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of cold very cold and very hot water and they will dip my head one like one minute here and one minute
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they're exchanging now the torture will be for three four hours non-stop they give you rest between
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for 20 minutes and after that they carry on for another three four hours until the end of the day
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and they will come at the end of that and then they ask you if you speak if you give them the
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information and in this case they just want the name of my friends and i will not betray my friends
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i will not kill my friends day number two they hang me upside down they beat me with everything in their
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hands they bury me with cigarettes they they heard me they will beat me for three four hours non-stop
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with the build and they i couldn't walk in the end of the day so they took me to my dark cell
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underground and they told me tell us the name of your friends and i said no i will not they told me do you
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know what will be your torture next day if you didn't speak today i told them i'm listening they said we
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will release three dogs to attack you these are dogs being trained by the egyptian authority to
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to attack the believers to attack humans and they they close the door i mean what you do if you are
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at my place you're underground you're beating you're tortured you're lying down and put off your own
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blood and you know next day you will face three dogs will attack and that was my prayer to the lord
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in this i told him lord i want to thank you for your gift on the cross i want to thank you that you
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died for our pain and our sin and our disease and i want to thank you that you rose again to give us
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the way the truth and the life almighty god i don't regret my belief in you i will do it again
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but my only request to you kill me before tomorrow morning
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i don't know if i can handle this pain and next day i woke up i prayed in jesus name that he will
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take my soul give them the body i don't care about the body from ash to ash from dust to dust i really
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and it was a dark room and they opened the door when they opened the door there is a red light at
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the corridor and it was a dark room and i can hear the dogs getting closer and closer and closer and
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closer and i prepared myself for pain i prepared myself for and i can hear them getting closer and
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closer until i know that they wasn't my room i can smell them their breath touching my hand but i
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couldn't feel any pain i couldn't feel any agony so i start to remove my hand just slowly away from my
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my face and that's what i saw all three dogs sitting around me officers and soldiers start to
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beat the dogs with the belt so hard for them to move to attack but they didn't the dogs did not
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attack and i remember the officers and the soldiers the the officers told the soldier maybe something
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wrong with the three dogs go get me another set of three dogs and they went to bring the another set
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of three dogs and another three dogs sit in the same position who is one little different the middle
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dog took step forward that he licked my face officers and soldiers didn't know what to do
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they never saw anything like this they took the three dogs they closed the door they get the same
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message that i got day number four officer number 27 he came he opened the door very angry very upset
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he was a big huge man like you know was big strong man officer number 27 officer number 27 he acted
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in two actions number one he slapped my face and he was a strong big man so when he slapped my face i hit the wall
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really because officer number 27 when he slapped me and he tortured me he thought that i would i would
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spend the rest of my life in pain in shame in agony unable to talk unable to laugh unable to live
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and i'm here to tell you that office number 27 is mistaken and today i'm standing with action for canada
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even laughing about it because officer number 27 and the people like him that try to take away our rights
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can hurt our body but no one can touch our soul no freedom is a bulletproof the second thing that officer
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number 27 that he took me to another dark room there was a piece of wooden cross shape and he tied my neck
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my hand my waist my leg i was tied naked on the cross and he came with a sharp knife make cut in the back
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of my left shoulder to the bones and he put salt and lemon in the open
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i woke up i found myself in a police hospital the egyptian authority wrote a report i was in a police
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hospital like who's a hospital and for three months i was unable to walk i was unable to move and the
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egyptian government during this time wrote a report that i'm mentally ill and that's how they play this
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game they call you mentally they call you names to discredit to destroy your repetition so if they kill
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you right away they will make out of you a martyr a hero so they put me in house arrest uh for uh another
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year before they transfer me to the court martial military court and the american military court no
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lawyer no nothing is just a congru court and they charged me with three charges that i tried to make
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revolution against the egyptian government that i tried to change the official religion of egypt from
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islam to christianity and listen to the third charge that i love and i worship christ