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May 10, 2006
Egypt: Blogger Beaten, In Custody
Earlier this month, Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah was arrested with 10 others while protesting in favour of an independent judiciary in Egypt. The demonstration was taking place on 7 May outside a Cairo courthouse. Alaa and the other individuals were singled out by police, beaten and detained in custody.
Alaa Abd el-Fatah runs the blog BitBucket with his wife Manal. In December, the international journalist group Reporters Without Borders awarded their site a "Best of Blogs" award.
He has now been subjected to a 15 day arrest warrant, "pending investigation", which means that he and the other detained men will be spending time in the notorious Torah prison. The women are being held in Qanatir prison.
So far, 48 people have been detained in protests for a free judiciary, and of these 6 are bloggers, and three are women. There are less than 830 bloggers in total in Egypt, and less than 30 of these dare post on political content.
An online petition has been created, which will be sent to the Egyptian government, protesting Alaa's detention. The petition will be sent to the Egyptian ambassador to the US, the prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, as well as the interior minister, as well as the US Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone and US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch.
A blogsite can be accessed, with more details - Free Alaa Blogspot - which will be updated as news comes in.
Similarly, the campaign can also be followed on the Rantings of a Sandmonkey on its own page, and on the Sandmonkey main site.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 10, 2006 2:52 PM
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