Tag: pigs

Police crack down on Kefaya protest; activists detained

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received those tweets from Nora, and here is a report by Sarah Carr:

A protest planned to take place in front of the People’s Assembly was banned yesterday by state security bodies.
According to Hesham Fouad, a member of the Freedoms Committee of the Journalists’ Syndicate, the protest was planned by the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience, which he described as a popular movement not tied to any organization.
Fouad said that the Committee is headed by Kamal Abu Eida of the Karama political party and Muhammad Abdel Qoddous, a journalist who is also head of the Freedoms Committee of the Journalists’ Syndicate.
The protest was against the new anti-terrorism law which the government is currently in the process of drafting.
It is widely rumored that the law will replace the 27 year-old, continually renewed state of emergency that ends on May 31.
There was a heavy presence of central security troops and plain-clothed policemen in downtown Qasr El-Eini Street, which borders the People’s Assembly, when Daily News Egypt arrived.
Daily News Egypt saw Abdel Qoddous surrounded, and then forcibly removed from his position opposite the gates of the PA by five plain-clothed men.
It was not possible to ascertain where Abdel Qoddous was taken as a plain-clothed man demanded that that Daily News Egypt reporters leave in the opposite direction to that taken by Abdel Qoddous.
The journalist’s mobile phone is currently switched off preventing Daily News Egypt from establishing his whereabouts.

Letter from the Mahalla detainees

Posted on By 3arabawy

Activists demonstrated on Saturday in front of the Press Syndicate demanding the release of the Mahalla detainees.

Free Mahalla

A letter from the Mahalla detainees, sent to the Judges’ Club, was also read out in the protest. Here’s the full translation in English, thanks to Sarah Carr:

Letter to the Judges’ Club
We, three political detainees, address the letter below to the Judges’ Club and its head Zakareya Abdel Aziz from the Borg el-Arab Prison in Alexandria…
Dear Sir,
A week has passed on our hunger strike and we are extremely weak. We are appealing to you as the last and only resort for all who have suffered injustice in Egypt.
We would like in the beginning to correct certain information which has reached the press about our (the three of us) having been transferred to the prison hospital as a result of our hunger strike.
The truth is that we are still in prison after the administration refused to call an ambulance to take us to hospital, and as a result of the inability of Karim el-Beheiry and Tareq Amin to stand on their feet – as a result of their extreme weakness. Instead, a “nurse” was summoned to examine Karim, whose condition has seriously deteriorated.
We would like to know the reason why we remain in detention. We will continue the hunger strike until we either die or receive this information.
We were tortured in the state security headquarters in Mahalla on the 6th, 7th and 8th April. Officers tortured Karim using electricity while Tareq Amin and Kamal el-Fayyoumy were insulted verbally and physically assaulted. We then spent eleven days in Borg el-Arab prison in a cell with individuals with criminal convictions. When the Tanta court ordered that we be released we were held for four days in the El-Salam police station [noqtat shorta] situated between Mahalla and Tanta before we were taken to Borg el-Arab prison were we began our hunger strike.
From our detention cell, we call on you and all political currents to take action and apply pressure in order to secure the release of all those detained in connection with the events of Mahalla.
Signed
Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin, Karim El-Beheiry
Detained workers from Mahalla
Borg el-Arab Prison
Wing 22, Cell 5