(CNN) A US citizen who once begged for President Donald Trump's help has died after more than six years in an Egyptian prison.
Mustafa Kassem died of heart failure on Monday, according to Pretrial Rights International and The Freedom Initiative, the two organizations that represented him during his case. He was 54 years old.
Kassem, who was Egyptian American, was detained in August 2013 in Cairo while visiting his family. He was beaten by security forces and held in pretrial detention for more than five years before being sentenced without due process in September 2018 to 15 years in prison, according to the organizations.
Shortly after his sentencing, Kassem sent a handwritten letter to Trump to inform him of his plight and implore the US President for his help.
"I pray that you have a plan for me," Kassem wrote. He told Trump that he was diabetic and was going on a hunger strike "knowing full well that I may not survive it."
throwaway_06-20 on January 15th, 2020 at 17:23 UTC »
Completely omitted is the fact that Kassem was a dual citizen of the Egypt and the USA
A core tenet of dual nationals is that when dealing with either one of your home-countries, your citizenship with the other-country is ignored. Any citizen of Egypt who presents themselves to the government of Egypt as as American is essentially committing treason. This is true everywhere for dual nationals.
Dual citizenship comes with added responsibilities and liabilities as well as privileges. The US State department is clear about that.
If Kassem had renounced his Egyptian citizenship before this all happened, then the situation would be totally different.
It's irresponsible to omit this important fact.
ModerateReasonablist on January 15th, 2020 at 14:40 UTC »
Remember that the Egyptian military has killed a verified 800 unarmed protesters in a single day to delete Egypt’s fledgling democracy, and James Mattis was meeting with the Egyptian military to help them retake control as this happened.
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/07/636254979/america-s-role-in-deposing-the-first-democratically-elected-president-of-egypt
tinkthank on January 15th, 2020 at 13:45 UTC »
Sisi is nothing more than a butcher. We all complain about Hong Kong, but this man gunned down over 4,000 protesters in one day in 2013. Ever since, he's arrested tens of thousands of Egyptians, tortured them in prisons and murdered them for voicing their political opinions. They've even imprisoned women for speaking out against sexual harassment. We like to think of China, North Korea, and Iran as evil states (no arguments there), but we tend to forget that we're no different when we support and provide "aid" to regimes that do just as much evil if not more.