May 8, 2006 For Immediate Release
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition demands the immediate release of Wael Khalil, a reform activist and founding member of Al-Awda-Egypt, and his comrades from the notorious Tora Prison. Mr. Khalil was one of forty demonstrators who were arrested on April 27, 2006 during protests in support of Egyptian judges, Mahmoud Mekki and Hesham Bastawisi, who are on trial for exposing the role played by their fellow judges in rigging last year’s Egyptian parliamentary elections. Al-Awda has learned that Wael and his comrades are on their third day of an open-ended hunger strike.
Along with being a founding member of Al-Awda-Egypt, Mr. Khalil, was co-founder of the 20 March Popular Campaign for Change. A software engineer by profession, the forty-year-old Khalil is an active member of the Egyptian anti-war and anti-globalization movement. He firmly believes in the organic link between the struggle for reform and freedom at home, and the struggle for Palestinian rights, first and foremost the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
Al-Awda affirms its solidarity with Wael and all Egyptian and Arab political prisoners. We call on the Mubarak regime to free Wael and his comrades immediately and without delay.
