The passport authorities in
Cairo's airport prevented the activist, Mark Nabil Sand, a member of No to
Compulsory Military Service movement, from traveling on Monday, April the 23rd,
2012, under the pretext that the Ministry of defense don't give such permits
for university students unless during the vacation of the middle of the
academic year or the vacation of end of the academic year.
It's worth mentioning that the
constitutional declaration states in the eighth article, that "the
personal freedom is safeguarded, untouched, unless in a case of flagrante
delicto, no person may be arrested, inspected, incarcerated, have his
freedom restricted by any restrictions or prevented from mobility except
by a command necessitated by investigations and preservation of public
security, this command is issued by the competent judge or the public
prosecution", which confirms that the right to travel is
constitutionally safeguarded and that the only bodies which have the authority
to prevent traveling are the judiciary and the prosecution. The constitutional
text doesn't give the ministry of defense the authority to prevent citizens
from traveling.
Since the situation isn't an
individual case, but rather those rules are applied to all university students
in Egypt who are older than 18 years old, as an attempt from the military
establishment to restrict their liberties and prevent them from traveling
abroad to avoid doing the military service which it knows very well that the
Egyptian youth hate it and do whatever they can to avoid doing it… As well as,
this problem is also faced by the conscientious objectors to the military
service and on top of them Emad
El Dafrawi, who declared his objection to the military service weeks ago,
he also can't travel because of the rules of the military establishment which
prevent him from traveling until finishing the compulsory military service
which he refuses because of his conscientious beliefs.
Upon these decisions, which are
established by the ministry of defense, we consider them unconstitutional
decisions, as well as dropping the international legitimacy, violating the
right to travel and mobility which are stated in the international human rights
laws. We also consider it a punishment for humans without committing crimes.
The rights for a human shouldn't be forfeited except for a crime and it must be
done through the judiciary authorities not the executive authorities.
Therefore, the movement will take
all the possible local and international legal procedures to obligate the
military establishment of Egypt to respect the basic human rights and for the
youth of Egypt to regain their freedom of travel and mobility without an
intervention from the military authorities.
27 April 2012