Saudi sentences Egypt physician to 20 years on ‘terror’ charges
An Egyptian physician who worked for Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health has been sentenced by a Saudi terror court to 20 years in prison, according to the Freedom Initiative.
Dr Sabry Mus’ad Ibrahim Shalaby was convicted after a colleague and fellow detainee said he had voted for the late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and was sympathetic towards the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yet Dr Sabry’s defence lawyer argued that he was at work at Al-Wajh Hospital in Tabuk whilst voting was taking place.
According to the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Dr Sabry was accused of terror charges just after he brought a case against the Saudi Ministry of Health after finding out he had been designated a job title that was ranked lower than his original contract.
Dr Sabry was arrested in Tabuk in the kingdom in January 2020, held in solitary confinement for nine months, during which time he went on hunger strike to try and force authorities to allow him to communicate with his family in Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was the first freely elected president in Egypt. He came to power after the 2011 revolution but was later overthrown in a coup and died in prison from medical neglect.
Following Morsi’s overthrow, the Egyptian military banned the Brotherhood, declared it a terror organisation and rounded up and imprisoned its members in dire conditions.
The government then targeted all Brotherhood members in the military, the judiciary, the media, universities and NGOs, imposed travel bans and confiscated their assets.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are strategic partners in the region and both oppose the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the months following the 2013 coup in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait gave Egypt $12 billion to support the overthrow of the Brotherhood and a return to the status quo.
In 2014 Saudi Arabia designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organisation.
In 2018 the Saudi Education Ministry announced that teachers deemed to be sympathetic with the Brotherhood would be purged from their posts and that school curricula and books would be reviewed and any references to the Brotherhood would be removed.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has said that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” Saudi schools.
Source: Middle East Monitor
