Bad news. Muslim Brotherhood journalist Abdel Moneim Mahmoud was detained by Mubarak’s Gestapo early Sunday 1am, at the Cairo International Airport. Ikwan Web reports:
Egyptian Security forces arrested blogger and Ikhwanweb correspondent Abdel Moneum Mahmoud at Cairo International Airport today while on his way to begin seven Arab countries tour to prepare a report about the status of human rights in the Arab world for the British satellite channel Al Hiwar. Monem had already boarded the plane when he was later pulled out by security forces.
After the arrest and sentencing of blogger Abdel Karim Sulieman to four years in prison for his internet blog, the Egyptian government seems to be pressing ahead with its campaign to silence all voices of civil dissent and encroaching on freedom of expression by arresting or intimidating bloggers and political activists.
Last time I saw Moneim was during the recently held Cairo Social Forum, where he spoke at the Anti-Torture Forum:
My solidarity goes to Moneim and his family. I hope to see him and all the political detainees in Mubarak’s gulags released soon.
Its a shame to see how freedom of speech, just as all other basic freedoms and human rights, being being undermined in Egypt. I have known Monem and worked with him for quite a long time. He is a civilian pushing for reform, peacefully struggling against tyranny and oppression.
I feel really bad because I am not there in Egypt now, participating in a large campaign to free Monem, but I will be back in Cairo soon.
With the recent crackdowns, I am concerned that I might as well be arrested from the Air Port when i arrive. I really hope that does not happen
Hossam, thanks for showing your solidarity, we all need to take this a step further. We need to be on the offensive and not the defensive with this regime. We all need to come to a realization that our different ideologies should not prevent us from working closely together, and standing side by side against this tyrannt authoritarian corrupt regime.
The regime does not care about our ideologies; it arrested Monem and Amer, so we should not care about that either.
I could confidently say that we all have a common objective of bringing and end to tyranny and authoritarianism, and paving the way for a new era of freedom, justice and equalilty. When that has been already achieved, we can disagree of various issues, and let the people choose what they want in periodic free and fair elections. But now is not the proper time for these disputes.