Alaá Ahmed Seif al Islam and 7 others detained, 3 let go

Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam(also known as Alaá Abd al Fattah), were among the 8 detained earlier today during the demonstrations at Bab El-Khalq Square, in front of the South Cairo Court, in support of Hesham Bastawissi, Mahmoud Mekky and the 40 arrested during last week´s sit in and demonstrations.

Here are the statement of the major Human Rights organisations(via the Cairo Institute for Human Rights studies.

Here is a Washington Post article by Nadia Abou el Magd and the Daily Star´s Pakinam Amer

Here are some accounts of what happend by bloggers starting with Ursula Lindsay at the arabist, ,the sandmonkey , Freedom, Mostafa and UPDATED by Issandr

Global Voices has a new post about Alaá , written by Socrates, and translated by Haitham Sabbah .


The eight detained are being held at the Sayyeda Zeinab police station

They are:


1. Alaa Ahmed Seif El Islam(Youth for Change)
2. Asmaa Ali(Youth for Change)
3. Nada El Qassas(Kifayya)
4. Rasha Azzab(Youth for Change)
5. Karim El Shaer(Youth for Change)
6. Fady Iskander(Youth for Change)
7. Ahmed Abdel Gawad(Youth for Change)
8. Ahmed Abdel Ghafour(Youth for Change)

All of them are in administrative detention with no charge, up for renewal every 15 days.

And the released are:

1. Sara Abdel Geleel
2. Mohammed Awaad
3. Yasser Abbas Mohammed


Alaá is a blogger/activist/community builder, provider of a aggregator who togheter with his wife Manal, won the Deutsche Welle BOB award 2005.

For background on Alaa, look at this open democracy article and this Cairo Magazine article .

For background on Youth for Change, go here

This makes the number of arrests the last ten days raising to 57 in the sit ins, and protests in support of the judges.

An Additional 72 arrests of members of the Muslim Brotherhood activists roughly during the same time frame, and ,mostly while putting up posters in the NFC campaign against the extension of the emergency law. The arrests have been in Alexandria(5), Giza(18), Kafr ash Shaikh(4), Sharqiyya(25), and Cairo(at least 20)

Among the 40 previously detained activists are the well-known blogger Malek Mostafa who togheter with Aláa among others were instrumental in working for the release of fellow blogger Abd al Karim. A good source for information about the 40, go here.


For the best updates, go to Manal & Alaa and to Kifayya.

My thoughts are with all arrested and their families.

Alaa abd al Fattah, Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam, Judges club, arrests, Kifayya, Emergency law, arrested bloggers , political activism, Hesham Bastawissi, Mahmoud Mekky, Egypt