Ibrahim Halawa diplomatic action
Senator Daly demands an urgent debate and stronger Government intervention for Ibrahim Halawa, whose trial has repeatedly been postponed and may carry a death penalty.
I ask the Leader to organise a debate today or, at the latest, tomorrow, on the case of Ibrahim Halawa, whose trial has been postponed yet again until October. The Government has not been doing enough on this case. Some 494 people face a mass trial with Ibrahim Halawa. Two were released today and three have died in custody. The questions all of the Government should ask are: why were the two released and how did the three die in custody? Ibrahim could face the same fate, because according to his legal team he faces the death penalty, yet our Government says that he does not. The ambassador from Egypt says that he prays that Ibrahim is not facing more serious charges. If he faces the death penalty and gets convicted on that charge, the presidential decree that our Government is hanging its hat on, saying that we can intervene after the trial, does not apply. Our Government wants transparency; it says that it needs and likes transparency. Yet, Fine Gael and the Labour Party in the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade refused in a vote to have Ibrahim Halawa's legal team come before it. The committee did not want to hear what they had to say. I ask the Leader to organise this debate tomorrow. Ibrahim is an Irish citizen. He is the only Irish citizen that Amnesty International has declared a prisoner of conscience, yet our Government says that soft diplomacy is what will work. It has not worked, but what does work and has worked for the Australians is hard diplomacy. They got their citizen, Peter Greste, released on a presidential decree while awaiting trial.
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He had faced trial. The trial was quashed, the verdict was overturned and he faced trial again. He was in the exact same legal position as Ibrahim Halawa. Australia's Prime Minister intervened directly with President el-Sisi and secured the release of its citizen awaiting trial. Yet we will be told that soft diplomacy works. Our citizen is in jail and has gone through 13 trials, none of which was heard. Now he faces waiting until October with no guarantee that he will get a hearing that day either. I ask the Leader as a matter of urgency to ensure that there will be a special debate today or tomorrow on this issue.