It’s 6am. I received news that Ashraq Al-Awsat journalist Essam Fadl was detained by the police in Tahrir Square, and taken to Qasr el-Nil Police Station.
No more details are available yet.
Tag: journalists
Mubarak’s police brutalize March 2003 anti-war protesters
Mathew uploaded to his flickr account some pictures he took of the violence that engulfed downtown Cairo on 21 March 2003, following the outbreak of the US-led war on Iraq. More than 40,000 took control of downtown, but the scene went down into chaos with the severe police brutality against demonstrators.
Several friends of mine were detained on that day, and tortured. I was arrested in the afternoon of the following day, 22 March, and taken to Gamaliya Police Station with dozens of detainees picked up randomly in Tahrir Square, then transferred to State Security HQ in Lazoughly, before I was released by 3am. One week later, the director of the Government Press Center Attiya Shakran revoked my official Press Card saying he was acting on “orders from State Security.” Since then, I applied three times for credentials only to be turned down.
These were the biggest demos the capital has witnessed since the January 1977 Bread Intifada.
Al-Jazeera reporter trial lacks fair standards, rights groups say
I received the following update from HR-INFO on the trial of Al-Jazeera’s Howeida Taha:
The session yesterday including watching small parts of the 16 tapes that were confiscated on 8 January 2007 claiming that these tapes included acting scenes that Al-Jazeera is planning to broadcast and destroy the reputation of Egypt. The court then asked to hear the witnesses presented by the State Security Prosecutor. The defense requested the session to be postponed for the defense to discuss some of the witnesses and some officers of the Ministry of Interior who were interviewed by Howayda Taha during here preparation for the documentary. In addition, the defense wanted to bring in some of the doctors who were interviewed. The judge refused any of these requests and postponed the case to 28 March to hear the defence statements and disregarding defense requests!
The three human rights organizations announced their fears that standards for a just trial would not be respected in this case. Without these fulfilling the requests of the defense team, it would be difficult to prepare a strong defense that is based on discussion with witnesses and experts. Their statements might change the way the case is heading. In addition, the court refused to watch the tapes completely in order to guarantee that the tapes really destroy the reputation of the country or not, especially that the material in the tapes is still unedited.
It is worth mentioning that while discussing the witnesses, it appeared that there has been contradictions in the statement of one of the state security officer who took the witness stand upon the request of the prosecutor. The witness is supposedly the one who carried the investigation for this case. His answers varied from a strong belief that the material on the tapes are fabricated to him saying in the same session that he was not sure of Howayda Taha’s time of travel and that he was surprised that the material in the tapes are fabricated after he watched it with millions of others on a Television after copies of the tape were leaked in a controversial manner!