Prison Doesn't Kill / The Last Letter of Shady Habash
These are filmmaker Shady Habash's last words from jail before taking his last breath on the 1st of May 2020. Shady sent the letter in need of support on the 26th of October 2019: I’m dying slowly because I know I’m standing alone in front of everything. We started working on this project three days before he passed away – this track was supposed to be part of a campaign for his release. The night Shady was leaving this world behind, his words were being recorded. The track is dedicated to all those whose human rights are violated, who are detained and waiting for us to take action for their release. Listen to it as if it is from someone you know, being detained, asking for your help. Take action. - Ramy Essam The track will raise money for filmmakers and photographers at risk. It will be shared through organizations supporting artists’ freedom of expression:
1. Artists At Risk
2. Safe Havens Malmö @MoM More TBA later
Words by Shady Habash (in Tora prison, Cairo, October 26th 2019)
Spoken and composed by Ramy Essam
Mixed and mastered by Johan Carlberg
Video art by Ganzeer
Rev House Productions 2020
Prison doesn’t kill, loneliness does.
I need your support, to not die.
For the past two years I’ve been trying on my own to resist everything happening to me, so that I can come out of prison the same person you’ve always known, but I can’t go on.
Resistance in prison means resisting yourself – protecting yourself and your humanity from the impact of what you see and live each day. It means preventing yourself from losing your mind or slowly dying, because of having been thrown into a room two years ago, being forgotten, without knowing when or how you will get out.
So I’m still in prison. Every 45 days I go before a judge who gives me another 45 days in jail, without even looking at me nor the papers of the case in which everyone else was released 6 months ago. Anyhow, my next court appearance will be Tuesday November 19th.
I need your support, and I need you to remind them of me being still in prison, and that they’ve forgotten me – and that I’m dying slowly because I know I’m standing alone in front of everything. I know that a lot of friends who love me are afraid to write about me, thinking I will be released anyway without their support.
I need you, and I need your support more than ever.
- Shady Habash, Oct 26th 2019