Activist Karim Ennarah’s Wife on His Imprisonment in Egypt

JESS KELLY, WIFE OF KARIM ENNARAH: Well, as you said, Biden said no more blank checks for Trump’s favorite dictator. And I can only read these very unprecedented — this very unprecedented crackdown on the EIPR, which is one of the last surviving human rights organizations in Egypt, as a deliberate attempt to lower Biden’s expectations of what he can expect of Egypt’s human rights record, and use my husband and Gasser and Mohammed Basheer as bargaining chips, so, that if he — if Biden does hopefully put pressure on him, this will be one of the things that he hands over as a kind of peace offering.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Let me go to Hossam Bahgat, who is the founder, the leader of the organization that your husband is working for. Hossam, this is a really, really dire situation. And you are not unfamiliar with the crackdown on people like you and Karim and the others who have been taken in. Just put this in context. Why do you think at this time these three have been taken in?

HOSSAM BAHGAT, FOUNDER, EGYPTIAN INITIATIVE FOR PERSONAL RIGHTS: Thank you, Christiane. Yes, you’re right that I’m not unfamiliar with these crackdowns, but it is unusual for me to be the one on the outside trying to help those on the inside. And that is much more unfortunate, actually, than becoming a victim of unfair prosecution or detention yourself, because of the helplessness and because the current regime has closed down any channel, any avenue that a human rights advocate could use in order to secure the release of someone unjustly held. We used to go to Parliament. We used to go to the media. We used to meet with some sympathetic government officials, do community organizing. And none of this is allowed now, of course. Why these three? I think the decision was made first to break this organization. And for a long time, they have been saying — sending us messages that it’s unacceptable that we wouldn’t talk to them, that we wouldn’t meet with them, and that when we take up our call — take their calls — I’m talking, of course, about the security agencies — and that when we take our — the calls, we don’t coordinate our activities, we don’t share our plans before they are executed. We don’t listen to them when they say, please, don’t work on this issue because it’s not a national priority or because et cetera, et cetera. They don’t like this, and they wanted to end this.