Aya Hijazi, center, a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen, is acquitted by an Egyptian court on April 16, 2017, after nearly three years of detention over accusations related to running a foundation dedicated to helping street children, in Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Mohamed el Raai/AP

IF IT WAS about me, I would have thrown myself into President Donald Trump’s embrace when I walked into his office, as he stood to greet me. I could use being in the grace and warmth of the president of the United States, after having rotted in an Egyptian prison for three years, enduring a savage defamation campaign, and facing multiple life sentences. Dina Powell, who facilitated my release in 2017, actively encouraged the hug, twice. “He likes you, Aya. He thinks you’re an angel. Hug him.”

But it was never about me. I was not in prison for a nefarious act that I committed. I was in prison because as an American who is inspired by the story of our nation, I felt that I could make my native homeland more like us, a democracy that respects the individual, human rights, and the rule of law. But the Egyptian dictatorship would not have it. It arrested me and accused me of being a spy, among other salacious and farcical charges, and persecuted me as it continued to arrest and torture thousands of activists like me.

But Trump did not get it. He thought that I could forget what I was about and asked me to “thank President Sisi.” I felt slighted. Clearly, the president viewed both my suffering, and freedom, as a deal. A deal that freed me physically but killed my fight for justice.

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Sanders’s pause is reviving the Constitution from becoming “we the few, the billionaire and corporations” to “we the people.” All the people. Everywhere. This is progress for America. It is an awakening that cannot go back. And the America I know does not go back; it is like the arrow, always forward, never stalling. What makes America America is not vicious capitalism, not technology. What defines America is progress. And a Sanders administration is progress.


https://theintercept.com/2020/03/14/aya-hijazi-trump-sanders/