Russian traveler Dmitry Zhikharev, who was kidnapped in Egypt and illegally detained by security forces in a prison at Cairo airport, has been released.
About it Reedus reports with reference to his citizen journalist Mikhail Ronkainen, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The journalist managed to meet with Zhikharev, who told about his release and how he managed to get a citizen of Uzbekistan out of this prison.
The detention center itself is a deportation prison where those undesirable in Egypt are placed. At the same time, the conditions of detention there are spartan - phones are taken away from prisoners, about 30 people are kept in a cramped cell, and the lights are on both day and night, which makes it impossible to rest.
“They simply take away your phone, so you have no chance of contacting anyone, in principle. That is, even if you leave this room, you don’t have a phone, you can’t call. Only relying on your own strength - if you have money, you can buy a ticket, but there is no chance that you will be allowed into the same airline office. I was sent at the expense of the state, that is, Egypt bought me a ticket. Apparently, I still have to wait for an invoice from the Egyptian authorities, who gave me a ticket to Athens,” Zhikharev said.
According to him, the paradox is that detainees are prohibited from contacting relatives or diplomats, and one of the few chances to get out is to tell representatives of the embassies of the countries whose citizens they are about their cellmates.
So Zhikharev managed to get a citizen of Uzbekistan out of prison, who was helped by consulate staff:
“I really regret that I didn’t take any contacts. It was necessary, as soon as you find yourself in this situation, you need to immediately collect all the information, how, who, what, why, citizens of which country. You never know who will be eliminated first. It needs to be there like a set of documents.”
Zhikharev went to prison after his car trip across Africa. The transport, which he legally bought in Egypt and was going to transport to Russia, was detained at passport control in Cairo, and the traveler himself was placed in a deportation prison.