“Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.” – Mahmoud Darwish.
On 1 February, Ahmed Samir Santawy, an Egyptian anthropology Master’s student in the Central European University, entered the office of Egypt’s National Security Agency (NSA) in Cairo. His father was waiting for him outside the building. A week earlier, Santawy’s home had been raided by masked men, but he was not there so they had requested that he hand himself into the NSA.
After presenting himself to the police station, Santawy disappeared for six days, and the NSA denied knowing his whereabouts. When he finally appeared in the Supreme State Security Prosecution, he was charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and spreading false news, a blanket list of charges used by the Egyptian regime against its perceived opponents.
