Freedom Believer: New song supporting Ibrahim

Published: Mon 27 Mar 2017, 12:02 PM

Last updated: Mon 27 Mar 2017, 1:19 PM

Dublin singer and musician Enda Reilly has released a sog supporting Ibrahim Halawa from Dublin has been in prison without trial in Egypt for over three years. His recent hunger strike has led him to end up in a wheelchair and his family say his life is now in immediate danger. The government has asked the Chief Medical Officer to nominate an Irish doctor to assess his condition.

Enda says: 'Ibrahim Halawa has been in prison in Egypt and should be released immediately as he has done nothing wrong. As a songwriter I'm releasing this song as a show of solidarity with Ibrahim.

'It has been on my mind to write some form of protest song for, or about Ibrahim Halawa for quite a while. As you may already know he was imprisoned for attending a protest in Egypt and is now in his fourth year in appalling conditions.

He continued: 'I’m annoyed with myself that I didn’t write something a year or more ago. I had known that he’s just a normal young lad living in Tallaght and I just saw recently that he was born in the Coombe like myself. Not that it matters where he was born. He’s an Irish citizen and that means we have a responsibility for his well-being. What drove me over the edge to reach out to him in song was some of the terrible things that I read recently by people writing about him in comments online. I want to let him know that I and everyone I know are appalled at how he is being treated and we are in solidarity with him. Seeing comments like that, which add misinformation and lies can tend to make moderate non-activist people like myself turn a blind eye. The seeds of confusion are sown and make good people second guess what in their core they know to be true and what they should speak up about.

'To me Ibrahim is a hero in the Joseph Campbell sense of the word. A normal Irish teenager thrown into a situation that he probably never imagined. We are lucky in Ireland to live in a democratic system which obviously has its flaws but we have freedom. As far as I can see Ibrahim stood up for democracy when he was in Egypt and we need to have his back. As a songwriter my only ammunition is a song and a song isn’t going to free him, but if it can help Ibrahim in any way then it’s something.

'He should be released and allowed to come home immediately and our Government should take a much stronger stance in my opinion. Obviously the politics of the situation are complicated and I don’t know the half of it but no country’s law should be above human rights law in my opinion. I don’t know how much clout we as a supposedly neutral country have but surely that’s partly what the EU is for. Here are very good articles about what happened to Ibrahim in The Irish Times and on the Amnesty International site. Freedom Believer is a song in solidarity of all who believe in democracy and I sing it in solidarity with Ibrahim, his friends and family.'

https://endareilly.bandcamp.com/track/freedom-believer-for-ibrahim

https://www.amnesty.ie/freeibrahim/

l
Ibrahim Halawa I sing this song for you
For Freedom Believers round the world are with you

Have you seen the picture
Of the tanks in front of a man
After a crowd had gathered
No one knows how it began
Aggrieved they protested
Never had so many risen before
Many died there
The number is not known for sure

Freedom Believer
I hope your dancing in the Square tonight
Freedom Believer
I hope you dance into the morning light.
Freedom Believer
I know your in Tienanmen Square tonight
Freedom Believer
I hope you dance into the morning light.

Downtrodden and starving
Even while majestic buildings rise
May you be guided all the way into the light
Your strength an courage
Will overcome and you will persevere
Resisting oppression
Every hour of the day and through the year.

Freedom Believer
I hope your dancing in the Square tonight
Freedom Believer
I hope you dance into the morning light.

Ibrahim Halawa I sing this song for you
For Freedom Believers in Ireland are still with you

Help us find courage
I know we share the same dream
To never be satisfied
While we still hear our fellow humans screams
You’ll make it home again
And we will keep up the fight
Til you find freedom
We will stand up for human rights

Freedom Believer
I hope your dancing in the Square tonight
Freedom Believer
I hope you dance into the morning light.

Ibrahim Halawa
I hope your dancing in the Square tonight
Ibrahim Halawa
I hope you dance into the morning light.

released March 23, 2017
Enda Reilly a scríobh agus a thaifead srl.
Written and recorded by Enda Reilly

Enda Reilly is a singer, guitarist and songwriter from Dublin whose projects include New Songs In Irish Amhráin Nua i nGaeilge, his Climate Change Songs Workshops, Arise and Go! a collaboration with poet Stephen James Smith. He has also written music as part of a poetic play, Everlasting Voices which has taken him to India and Japan and worked with many Irish language poets through IMRAM.

He has been facilitating his Climate Change Songs Workshops in schools and libraries for the last six years in the greater Dublin area. These are based on his songs about Climate Change and his love of science which he has never lost since getting his degree in Geology from UCD.

Enda is a former winner of the Christie Hennessy Song Competition, Comórtas Amhráin Rónán Beo @3 and has represented Ireland with songs in minority language song competitions.

He has played concerts with John Spillane, Kila, Liam O Maonlai, Rónán O Snodaigh and John Prine amongst others and sang with The RTE concert Orchestra on Culture Night last year. He has recently released his latest album, Whorls, a selection of WB Yeats’s poetry set to music and is delighted to have co-written 6 songs with Aoife Scott for her debut album 'Carry The Day'.