Ahmed Naji

Ahmed NajiAhmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for 'violating public modesty' when a chapter of his novel The Use of Life was published in a state-owned literary weekly. Alaa Abd el-Fattah is serving five years for lobbying against military trials for civilians.

From The Blog
31 March 2017

On my first day in prison, trying to make me feel better, my fellow inmates listed the advantages of our particular prison, and our particular ward: most of the inmates were senior civil servants, businessmen, judges, police and army officers. Each ward can take sixty prisoners and the prison has nine wards. ‘We’re all respectable people,’ my colleague said, ‘and the administration here is respectable too.’ I said nothing. ‘And even Alaa Seif is here,’ he said, ‘in the ward across the corridor.’

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