The first statement after his release 2012/1/24. Maikel Nabil Sanad, the first political prisoner of conscience after 25 January 2011, the pacifist conscientious objector and the founder of No to Compulsory Military Recruitment Movement
Good Evening. I am speaking to you now and a few minutes remain for the 25th of January 2012 to start. This is the first time I would be able to talk to you directly since 302 days, this is the period I spent imprisoned by the command of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces.
Firstly, it is necessary to thank all the Egyptian and foreign activists who exerted extreme efforts in order to come back between you and to regain my freedom, my physical freedom, freedom of my pen, my freedom of opinion and my freedom of belief. If I have came back today free and I have had my day of freedom this is not only because of my hunger strike and not only everything I did, but also because of you standing by me and because all the efforts exerted for my freedom. And it is necessary that I thank you all on each exerted effort for my freedom.
I would like that all the people know that I strongly refuse the decision of the militarist dictator Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, pardoning me and I totally refuse the word “pardon” in every detail because I did not commit a crime, in order for the army chief to pardon me, but I was exercising my right to freedom of thought and expression and exercising my right to freedom of belief and exercising my right to promote and call for my thoughts and beliefs. I did not commit a crime.
I think that if the Supreme Council of Armed Forces were seeking to improve its image for the people it should have dropped the charges from the beginning and to announce my innocence from the false propaganda which the Morale Affairs had spread against me and the perverted intelligence agencies against me not that it leaves the false and the forged accusations in my penal record and to pretend that it pardons me when it was required from them to ask the people to pardon them.
If the military council imagined that when it would get me out today from prison and from the state of abduction and captivity which I was subjected to. If he imagined that it is a means to abort the revolution and that it is a means to convince some people not to go out tomorrow on 25 January chanting to oust the military rule and to chant to oust the militarist regime of July and to chant to oust the political dictatorship, no matter what its type and religion I would love to deny this image and to say that my release does not mean that militarist became good and it does not mean that the regime has changed. It does not mean that Egypt has now democracy or freedom of thought and expression.
I would like you to know that the 302 days which I lived in prison were all suffering and pain. All that suffering and pain were by direct commands from members of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. Therefore, if we considered a prisoner of conscience suffering all that period by direct commands by the political leadership in the nation, it means that we are dealing with a corrupt, unjust, haughty, bloody political regime. We can not keep silent on it, not for one more day because that means that we are subjecting our lives and the lives of our siblings and the lives of all our beloved who are living on the land of Egypt.
I miss the political work and I miss to sit with you again at Tahrir. I miss writing again in my blog. I miss the good discussions between me and people, even if they disagreed with me. But, I ask your permission. I need to rest for exactly 2 days. During the 2 days, I would be able to regain my physical and psychological health and to be able to make the medical tests I need and to be able to get to know everything that because of my presence in prison and because of isolation and because of the media blockade forced on me to be able to get to know them and I will get back to the rows of the revolution as soon as possible as my health and my circumstances allow me.
Before I end my words, I would like to send a message to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. I would like to tell them, as the Egyptian people coming out to streets tomorrow they (SCAF) need to look for good and clever lawyers to help them for the International Criminal Court at The Hague, very soon.
I have just finished my words. I do not have a word or a phrase to finish with it, except that I am sure that millions of Egyptians are going to chant tomorrow in Tahrir “Down with military rule”.