06 Apr 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
The publisher of the new book about Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN nuclear watchdog, was arrested by the Egyptian authorities on Saturday. Egyptian officials raided Ahmed Mahanna’s house a week after he released a book lauding ElBaradei who has launched a campaign for political reform and hinted he may challenge Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an election due in 2011. Egyptian officials did not state a reason for detaining Mahanna, who was released the next day.
08 Mar 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
Student and blogger Ahmed Mostafa is facing a military court after a prosecutor announced on 1 March that they would push ahead with charges of ‘publishing false information about the military establishment’. There has been no investigation into Mostafa’s published allegations that a teacher’s son was pushed out of the military academy in order to make room for a more influential individual.
02 Mar 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Ahmed Mostafa, an engineering student at the University of Kafr el-Sheikh, faced a military court on 27 February, accused of “publishing false information about a military institution”. Mostafa, 20, was arrested on orders from the military prosecutor’s office in the Nile Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh on 25 February.
In February 2009, Mostafa reported on his blog Matha Assabak ya Watan (“What’s Wrong with my Homeland?”) on a student that had been forced to leave a military school in order to make room for another applicant.
“This isn’t the first time for Mostafa’s blog to fall under scrutiny,” said Rawda Ahmed, a lawyer following the case for the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “Last year, he was summoned by officials of the Armed Forces on a friendly basis, who explained the problem to him.”
09 Feb 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
Three of the Muslim Brotherhood’s senior leaders, including Mahmoud Ezzat, the Brotherhood’s deputy leader, were detained alongside at least 11 other members for engaging in banned political activity. Although the Muslim Brotherhood is banned, its members won a fifth of the parliament seats in the 2005 election when they ran as independents. A spokesman for the group said the arrests were intended to thwart its preparations for elections later in the year.
