Egypt: Emergency Law and systematic repression raising number of prisoners of conscious

Cairo, March 9, 2008

“The systematic campaign launched by the Egyptian government against the opposition candidates and the Muslim Brotherhood to prevent them of running into next local elections in Egypt, should not divert attention from the increase of number of prisoners of conscious”. as stated today by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Dr. Ayamn Nour who is on unfair charges and the secular blogger Kareem Amer who is also sentenced to four-year imprisonment because of his writings on the internet, are not the only prisoners of conscious, as the list also includes the novelist & the political activist Musaad Abu Fagr who was arrested following several release judgments issued. Also the engineer Ali Abdul-Fattah, the director of the Egyptian Media Center and a member of the Committee for Supporting the Palestinian People, then comes the arrest of Khaled Hamza the director of “Ikhwan-web” http://www.ikhwanweb.com.

Rather than those lie behind the bars, either because of Emergency Law detention decisions or military tribunals and investigations which lack all essentials of justice.

The Arabic Network also stated “the severe deterioration in general freedoms and bad economic situations should not make us forget the prisoners of conscious in Egypt, as we shall all be ashamed if we kept silent while the Egyptian prisons are harboring all these numbers of prisoners arrested for no crime but their calling for democracy.”

Musaad Abu Fagr is arrested following release judgments, which denies the Egyptian government allegations of using the Emergency Law only against drug traffickers and those involved in terrorist attacks.

Moreover, the Egyptian government itself so far, didn’t provide justifications for detention of the engineer Ali Abdul-Fattah who was detained at the end of last January.

While Egyptian citizens were occupied with the unspeakable economic crisis and opposition powers were inflicted with violations aiming to prevent them of running into local elections, the Egyptian government was muffling more free voices by detaining the director of Ikhwan website Khaled Hamza for more than two weeks ago.

This large campaign of attacks and arrests witnessed by Egypt these days, can be considered the worst since early eighties, that the respect of law and the detained’ basic rights became deteriorated, whether trying to know detention reasons, informing lawyers or considering judgments issued.

The Arabic Network warned against the continuation of these police-style situations and severe repressions which resulted in a state of anger widespread among all classes of Egyptian community and heralds a state of devastating disarray.

http://www.hrinfo.net/en/reports/20...