Freedom for Mahienour, Youssef, and All Detainees… Down with the Tyrannical Regime and Its Judiciary

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

As yet another judicial farce unfolds under Sisi’s rule, the Alexandria Court of Appeals judge has ordered the detention of lawyer Mahienour El-Massry and journalist Youssef Shaaban, both from the Revolutionary Socialist movement, pending the final ruling on their appeal—along with seven others—against their two-year prison sentence issued last February in the case known as the Raml Police Station events.
This sham case accuses them of attacking the Raml Police Station and its officers in March 2013 during Mohamed Morsi’s presidency. The case was reactivated under Adly Mansour’s rule, and the verdict was delivered under Sisi, which indicates that the judiciary remains a mere tool in the hands of tyranny, regardless of who is in power.

For anyone who still doubts, this case confirms the judiciary’s identical role in all authoritarian regimes—where the law is manipulated to serve the ruler, protect the regime, and preserve its interests, while justice remains entirely absent.

We see the judiciary handing down prison sentences to revolutionary youth on baseless charges built upon police-fabricated investigations and false witnesses, even when such allegations defy logic. We see detainees imprisoned simply for wearing a T-shirt that says “A Nation Without Torture”—as if the judiciary itself stands in favor of torture.

At the same time, we see the acquittal of a police officer responsible for the murder of dozens of detainees who suffocated inside a transport vehicle after a single phone call from the president’s chief of staff to the public prosecutor—because the officer happened to be the son of a high-ranking general.
We see pretrial detention dragging on for over a year in clear violation of legal limits. Yet, the judiciary turned a blind eye to the fourth defendant in the Presidential Palaces case—none other than Ibrahim Mahlab himself, who oversaw the construction of Mubarak’s palaces using the Arab Contractors company, which he headed at the time.

As part of this vengeful judicial system, Sisi—acting as the sole legislative authority—has issued dozens of laws entailing dictatorship, such as granting judges the right to refuse to hear witness testimonies.
“The records are ours, the laws are ours, the judges and prosecutors are our sons and men.” A thoroughly corrupt system—one that only a revolution can cleanse.

It is no surprise, then, that the recent remarks of the resigned Minister of Justice about the children of garbage collectors sparked outrage. But in truth, these statements merely reflect the judiciary’s real nature—a system that deliberately excludes the children of workers and people experiencing poverty, ensuring that the judiciary is hereditary—passed down only to the sons of judges, generals, and people in business. It is a permanent weapon in the hands of the regime—imprisoning its opponents while acquitting its allies—standing side by side with the military, police, and oligarch-controlled media as pillars of the authoritarian state.

From inside her iron cage during another trial—where she faced charges of protesting without a permit while attending the retrial of Khaled Said’s killers—Mahienour, tender-hearted yet unbreakable, stood firm before the judges of oppression and chanted:
“Prison has never changed an idea.
Prison will never kill tomorrow.
Revolution, revolution until victory!”

And we repeat it: Your prisons will never break us. Freedom is coming, without a doubt.
We reaffirm our commitment to the struggle and pledge to continue organizing campaigns with all democratic and revolutionary forces to demand:
• The repeal of the Protest Law
• The release of all detainees
• Resistance against all attempts to criminalize strikes
Freedom for all political detainees!