24 Nov 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy tweeted to say she had been arrested and beaten in Cairo this morning. Eltahawy, who writes for Canada’s Toronto Star, Israel’s The Jerusalem Report and Denmark’s Politiken, is said to have been detained by Police in Tahrir Square. Following her arrest, the journalist tweeted “Beaten arrested in interior ministry” around 4am (EET).
Her arrest sparked outrage on Twitter, and the campaign to #FreeMona began trending worldwide.
It is also believed that activist Maged Butter, who was with Eltahawy, was also arrested, and a similar #freemaged campaign began on Twitter. Unconfirmed reports on the micro-blogging site suggest Maged has since been freed.
Also, documentary film-maker, Jehane Noujaim, best known for her documentary “Control Room” about the pan-Arab news station, Al-Jazeera, was detained, and her camera confiscated.
The US State department responded to the rumours of the arrests on Twitter: “Reports of @monaeltahawy and @pangeaworld detention very concerning. @USEmbassyCairo engaging authorities. #FreeMona“.
Images calling for the release of Mona and Maged also appeared on Twitter, as well as an image showing Maged’s injuries, following his release.
Mona tweeted “I AM FREE” shortly after 12.20 EET, and said she could barely type following “12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined.” Mona also alleged she had been sexually assaulted by 5 or 6 members of the Egyptian security forces, who “groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area.”
02 Nov 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Prolific Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah was detained on Sunday after refusing to be interrogated by a military investigator, insisting on his right to be tried before a civil court. Rasha Abdulla reports
Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (@alaa) was jailed on 30 October for 15 days pending investigation after refusing to be interrogated by a military investigator on charges related to the now infamous Maspiro events, in which over 20 people died and many more were injured after a brutal crackdown on a Christian-majority demonstration.
Alaa was called in for investigation last week. He was active in the aftermath of the event, having spent two days at the morgue alongside other activists in solidarity with victims’ families, while trying to convince them to agree to autopsies and ensure the reports of said autopsies were correctly documented. He detailed the experience in a piece for Al Shorouk newspaper (a translation of which can be found here), in which he reminded everyone that solidarity is the solution to Egypt’s problems. Alaa has been detained before, in 2006 he spent 45 days in jail, a piece he wrote from behind bars was published today entitled “A Return to Mubarak’s Jails.”
Alaa was in San Francisco when he was asked to report last week. His father, veteran human rights lawyer Ahmed Seif El Islam Abdel Fattah, appeared in court and asked for the case to be postponed. Alaa returned to Cairo on Saturday afternoon and appeared in court on Sunday morning. The military prosecutor filed five charges against him including demonstrating, inciting to demonstrate, assaulting military personnel, destroying public property, and stealing military weapons. Alaa, whose sister Mona Seif (@monasosh) is one of the founders of the No to Military Trials for Civilians campaign refused to recognise the authority of an civic judge. He pointed out that the army is facing law suits accusing it as a defendant in the same case, which constitutes a clear conflict of interest. As a result he was detained, pending further military investigation.
Alaa has been active on the blogging scene in Egypt since 2004, when he and his wife Manal Hassan (@manal) started the award-winner blog and aggregator Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket. Both bloggers fought the Mubarak regime online and offline, breaking cases of corruption and police brutality that were later picked up by the traditional media.
Many believe Alaa’s detention is a warning to other bloggers and political activists, a ratcheting up of the series of violations against free expression committed by Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). The violations include summons sent to journalists Rasha Azab (@rashapress) and her editor, Adel Hammouda, over Azab’s coverage of a meeting between the No to Military Trials group and SCAF in which allegations that SCAF subjected female demonstrators to virginity tests were discussed. Later, when journalist and blogger Hossam El Hamalawy discussed SCAF on a popular Egyptian talk show, he and his show host, Reem Magued, were both called in before the military prosecutor. That visit was later described by the prosecutor as “a chat.” Other bloggers that have been interrogated and/or detained including Asmaa Mahfouz, Loai Nagati, and Maikel Nabil, who has been on a hunger strike since 22 August.
A military court sentenced Maikel Nabil to three years for “insulting the military & spreading false reports aiming to disturb public security.” The charges relate to a May blog entitled “The army and the people are not one hand,” in which he listed the army’s alleged wrongdoings, including the virginity tests claim. Maikel, who has a heart condition, was tried 12 days after being arrested on 28 March.
Other free expression violations have been committed on the satellite television front. In recent months, army police forces have raided the offices of Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr several times, as well as 25TV channel. Al Jazeera Mubasher has since been banned from broadcasting from Egypt, accused of incomplete licensing procedures. Most recently, popular television host Yosri Fouda chose to indefinitely suspend his highly-viewed political talk show because he felt he was under pressure to not report things as he sees them and did not want to force himself through “self-censorship.” He told the BBC that he did not want to “take the narrative of the army” and would rather step back in protest of the military rulers’ attempts to “stifle free expression.”
The No to Military Trials campaign, which has been actively lobbying on behalf of all military detainees, has published a press release condemning Alaa’s arrest in the strongest possible words, and asking for his immediate release, together with the other 12,000 victims of military trials in Egypt, who should at least be retried before a civil court. The group called upon Egyptians to refuse to cooperate with military interrogation and to support the cause of No to Military Trials for Civilians. You can read the press release in its entirety here. A press conference by the group is scheduled for tomorrow, 3 November, at 2pm Cairo time.
Rasha Abdulla is an associate professor at the Journalism and Mass Communication Department of the American University in Cairo. An advocate for freedom of expression, Abdulla has published several books and writings on Internet use and digital activism in Egypt and throughout the Arab World. You can follow her on Twitter:@RashaAbdulla
02 Nov 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Cross posted from Felix Arabia
I did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years. After a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail?
The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 metres) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They were trampled upon three times in one day. I realise suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similarly flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration. The only difference is that we have exchanged state security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living in.
The previous time, I was joined in detention by 50 colleagues from the Kefaya movement, but on this occasion I am alone, together with eight wrongly accused.
As soon as they realised that I was from the “Youth of the Revolution” they started cursing at the revolution and how it failed in “sorting out” the Interior Ministry. I spent the first two days listening to stories of torture by the police force, which is not only adamantly resisting reform, but also seeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and the innocent.
From their stories I discover the truth of the great achievements of the restoration of security. Two of my colleagues are in jail for the first time, simple youth without a grain of violence. And what is it they are accused of? Forming a gang. Now I understand what the Interior Ministry means when it reports that it has caught armed gangs. I congratulate the country for the restoration of security then.
In the following few hours, sunlight will enter our always dim cell, we read the creative Arabic engravings of a former colleague, four walls from floor to ceiling covered in Quran, prayers, supplications, thoughts and what appear to be the will of a tyrant to repent.
The next day we discover in the corner the date of the inmate’s execution and we are overwhelmed by tears.
The guilty plan on repenting, but the innocent do not know what to do to avoid a similar fate.
On the radio I hear the speech of his Excellency the General inaugurating the tallest flag pole in the world, one which will certainly enter the record books. And I wonder: Was the inclusion of the name of the martyr Mina Daniel as one of the instigators in my case also a record in audacity? On the basis of it not being sufficient for them to be first to kill the victim and to walk in the funeral but also to spit on the corpse and accuse it of a crime?
Or perhaps this cell can win the record of the number of cockroaches? My thoughts are interrupted by Abu Mailk: “I swear to God Almighty, if the wronged are not absolved, this revolution will not succeed.”
The third day, 1/11/2011Cell 19, Prison of Appeal, Bab Al KhalqAlaa Abdel Fattah
Despite the lethal crackdown, Egyptians are converging on Tahrir Square for the fourth day demanding change. Shahira Amin reports
Her arrest sparked outrage on Twitter, and the campaign to #FreeMona began trending worldwide.