Ramy Shaath, an Egyptian-Palestinian human rights activist, arrived in Paris and was reunited with his wife on Saturday after being released from prison and deported by Egyptian authorities.
An overjoyed Shaath, the son of a prominent Palestinian politician, walked out of the Charles de Gaulle airport smiling, holding hands with his wife, Céline Lebrun Shaath, a French national, and waving to a cheering crowd of supporters.
“I am very excited to be here," Shaath said. Speaking in English, he described the network of over-crowded Egyptian prisons in which he had spent the last two and a half years as "lacking respect for human dignity.” However, his resolve has not been broken, Shaath said.
“I am continuing on my way. I am insisting on freeing my friends from Egyptian jails,” Shaath said.
“I have hope for a better Egypt," Shaath said. "I have hope for an independent and secure Palestine and I have hope for a better Middle East and a better world we live in.”
French President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet welcomed the decision to release him, saying he was “relieved” and thanking those who contributed.
Egyptian authorities deported Shaath after he served 2 1/2 years of pre-trial detention over allegations of having ties with an outlawed group, his family said Saturday. He was forced to renounce his Egyptian citizenship to gain his freedom, they added in a statement.
His father is Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The family says Ramy was handed over to a representative of the Palestinian Authority at Cairo international airport, where he boarded a flight to the Jordanian capital of Amman. He then travelled on to Paris.
There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian government.
Ramy Shaath was arrested in July 2019 at his home in Cairo and accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government designated as a terrorist organization in 2013.
A dual Palestinian-Egyptian national, he was added to a case that included a former lawmaker and key secular activists. They had been arrested about a month before Shaath and accused of collaborating with wanted Brotherhood members in Turkey to plot violence and riots.
Last year, he was added to the country’s terrorist list.
Ramy Shaath helped establish Egypt’s branch of the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel, known as BDS.
The family statement said Egyptian authorities forced him to renounce his citizenship as a “precondition for his release.”
“No one should have to choose between their freedom and their citizenship. Ramy was born Egyptian ... No coerced renunciation of citizenship under duress will ever change that,” the statement read.
Egyptian authorities have previously forced activists with duel nationality to relinquish their Egyptian citizenship as a condition for their release, a legal maneuver that allows authorities to deport foreigners accused of crimes.
In July 2020, Mohamed Amashah, a dual Egyptian-American citizen, was forced to renounce his Egyptian nationality to get released after he spending nearly 500 days in pre-trial dentition over charges of “misusing social media” and “aiding a terrorist group.”
Mohamed Soltan, also an American citizen and son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, was released from an Egyptian prison in 2015 after he relinquished his Egyptian citizenship.
