Halawa: Freedom is like a dream... now I can help prisoners
IBRAHIM Halawa has arrived home after spending four years in an Egyptian prison – but he already plans to use his freedom to help the homeless as well as Irish people who have also been jailed abroad.
And the 21-year-old declared yesterday: ‘It still feels like a dream. This is a moment I have waited four years for.’
A memoir is also on the horizon for the Tallaght man, who emerged to rapturous scenes in Dublin Airport yesterday.
Dozens of supporters joined his family and friends as he arrived home in Ireland, four days after he was released from prison in Egypt. He had been acquitted of charges relating to a 2013 Muslim Brotherhood protest in Cairo.
At the airport, he was first reunited with his family – parents, sisters, brother, nieces and nephews – in private before he emerged to the public, where he repeatedly thanked the Government for their assistance in securing his freedom.
Mr Halawa, who sat his Leaving Certificate in Dublin before he was arrested in Cairo in 2013, said he plans to continue his studies and will now advocate for others who are imprisoned abroad. But first he will take some time off to spend with his family, particularly his mother who has been unwell recently.
Mr Halawa – who met some of his young nieces and nephews for the first time yesterday – said: ‘I need to get some medical checkups, I am going to be taking some time off. My mom is sick, so I need to stay by her side. We need to get some family time as well.’
He added: ‘I have left a lot of cellmates behind, there are still a lot of innocent people behind bars around the world, not just in Egypt. I am going to hopefully be working to help release all of the innocent people around the world.
‘Irish people, even if they are criminals or they have been convicted abroad – I am going to be asking for them to come back and do the time in Ireland.
‘Because I felt how it is being in prison away from home. I was always hoping that the least I could get is to be in prison at home so I could see my family – so they need to see their family.’
He also said: ‘I am going to be helping a lot of homeless people. I have a lot of plans for that.’
Mr Halawa flew from Cairo to Dublin, via Frankfurt, with his sister Nosayba and the Irish Ambassador to Egypt, Seán O’Regan, arriving in Ireland shortly after 11am yesterday.
He said he plans to work on a book, which he has ‘written a lot of’ already, and also described the moment he saw Irish soil for the first time in four years
‘It was so green and so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I have never seen green in so long.
‘I want to be with the Irish people, so thank you so much.’
He added: ‘I really want to thank the haters as well, they have made me stronger.’
He also thanked those who had helped in his campaign – including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan. Mr Halawa said he will discuss his ordeal and answer questions about it ‘very soon’.
Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone, his local TD, greeted him in the airport, and Ambassador O’Regan praised the ‘big team effort’ that went into securing Mr Halawa’s release.
Mr Coveney described it as a ‘happy day’ for the Halawa family and said it was an occasion of ‘great joy for all of his friends and supporters’.
‘I’ve left a lot of cellmates behind’ ‘I want to thank the haters’