The Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU) has “adopted” Belgian prisoner Leslie Maras, who was arrested in February 2006 for attempting to smuggle drugs into Egypt and was sentenced to life in prison. The sentence is extremely harsh for European standards. His parents were in Egypt for one week in November

The Center made it possible for Maras’ mother to speak in the St. John the Baptist Church on November 16^th, where she could not compose herself and broke out in tears, which made it for the church very clear how hard this is on the family. On November 27^th, Cornelis Hulsman and I joined a group from the Prison Ministry of church to visit the non-Egyptian prisoners in prison.