Detained for being the wrong Dan…

By tdf, October 18, 2006

I was once detained under armed guard for 11 hours at Cairo airport, Egypt. My then girlfriend had mixed up my passport with another Dan’s passport (from our shared house). Anyway we had somehow managed to get through British and Dutch customs/immigration but realized the passport error as we arrived at Cairo. As expected the Egyptian Officials, were rather unsympathetic.

They separated me from my lady, and then told me I would never see her again. They wouldn’t let her come and see me for about 4 hours or maybe 6, I can’t recall exactly, it was a surreal experience.

Also in this room, of detainees, were some other Arabs, harmless looking types, but also one man clothed in a yellow plastic one piece suit with chained cuffs linking his hands and his feet. He was a worrying proposition, and I knew who he was.

I knew him, because before being ‘detained’, I had been speaking with a huge Dutch Police Officer, not a normal cop, but some kinda Dutch Special services. I had asked him what he was doing, not sure why, maybe just cos he looked out of place in that cue of people lining up for immigration.

I had seen the yellow suited Arab, escorted through the barriers, and transferred from Dutch authority to Egyptian Authority, under the baleful gaze of this huge Dutch copper. All he told me was that the mystery man was someone ‘you wouldn’t want to meet’, which was no joke, but moreover some kind of fucked up premonition.

Suffice to say, this extradited chap, sitting 2 metres away from me, staring into my head like he wanted to carve it out with his own nails, made me feel a tad awkward!

I was allowed to go to the toilet which was the next room along, and I was allowed to smoke outside the room. My lady finally got permission to come say a very quick hello after hours of asking, which was hard for us both. I was falling to pieces at certain periods of that little episode. Even thinking about it now makes my neck gain some tension that I don’t like or need, so I shall bring this to a quick crescendo and suitable finish…

I was thrown crumbs by the guards, like I was their pet dog. Whenever I tried to sleep they knocked their huge wooden truncheons on the table near my head. They pretended they couldn’t speak any English apart from ‘SHE GONE’ and “SHE NOT COME BAK’, in reference to the supposed ‘departure’ of my lady, that the guards thought it funny to tell me.
This crazy yellow bastard, had his cuffs and chains loosened more and more during my stay in that room, and to be honest the thought of what might happen if they set him loose on me, did cross my mind and worry me considerably..
Anyway due to the sheer Bulldog determination of my lady, I managed to escape this chaotic scene with one hour to spare before my ‘deportation’.
She has managed to find one airport employee who allowed her to use the phone to contact the British embassy who sent a man down straight away, who in turn bargained with the guards, to allow my lady to speak to me again. He also begged them to let me get some sunlight and walk about, as I had been cooped up like a criminal for 11 hours without rest/sleep/food etc, but this request was flatly refused.

I remember when I was let out that damn room; I walked straight down the corridor, back into the immigration area, 12 hours after leaving it, then gave my lady a big hug and kiss, right in front of about 200ish Arabs who all turned and made a funny noise in scornful disgust! The British embassy man, quickly moved to separate us and get us out the airport and on our way to an enjoyable holiday. /

I didn’t like that night/dawn experience, I was in shock for a while, but a hut near the beach on the coast of Sinai and the hot sea and sun helped me relax thereafter…as did the Egyptian green.