15 activists arrested at Sidi Bishr in Alexandria, Ahmed Maher among them

BREAKING STORY -14 activists from Ghad Youth and the April 6th Youth has been arrested at the Sidi Bishr beach in Alexandria. They were singing songs about Egypt and raised the Egyptian flag on the beach as well as wearing T-shirts with 6th of April youth on.

One of the April 6th Youth, Muhammed Abd al Aziz described the scene prior to the arrest like this:

"We were heading for Sidi Beshr beach but a policeman prevented us getting there because we had a large kite painted with the Egyptian flag and we were wearing T-shirts with 'April 6 Movement' on,"

Here is a clip taken by the group, showing them on the beach, dismantling the kite/Egyptian flag. Minutes later they were beaten and some of them arrested.



The beach of Sidi Bishr being one of the most frequented by alexandrians and summer tourists alike, If intended this seems to have been a combination of one of Kefayya Youth brilliant ideas of taking the message to the people, as they did in the summer of 2005 in popular Cairo neigbourhoods like Shoubra and Sayyida Zeinab and the idea launched last July 23rd, of making a statement by raising the flag on the national day as a protest to say that it´s our symbol too, and not only the perogative of the state, A reclaim the flag/the flag statement is ours if you like.

UPDATE: They were walking down the Alexandrian corniche, when they were arrested. According to one of the detainess, they were beaten by officers at al Farana.


According to reports, they have been taken to the Alexandria State Security Headquarters, al Farana, the same place where Kareem Amer was taken after the Muharram Beq riots in October 2005.

The April 6th Youth had been calling for a gathering today at 12:30 at the Ghad Party headquarters in Alexandria, and the focus this time was Prisoners of Conscience, but it was perhaps even more a way of establish or formalize contactcs in Alexandria, considering that the April 6th Youth was established less than 30 days ago, after the success of the facebook site calling for a General strike on April 6th. Their two front figures both suffered greatly in the aftermath of April 6th, Esraa abd al Fattah was detained and held in prison while Ahmed Maher was taken from his car into a minibuss, taken to a police station were he got beaten up before being taken to notorius SSI Headquarters at Lazoughli and faced with a threat of rape, and badly beaten up once again.

A sit in will be held at the General Prosecutor´s office, Cairo High Court at 2 P.M Thursday, July 24th to demand the release of the April 6th detainees. Inanities provides an eyewitness report here.

UPDATE: Ahmed Maher arrested in Alexandria today. He was taken away at the Raml tram station in downtown Alexandria at 1 P:M and it´s unclear at this point in time if he is detained at al Farana or somewhere else.

The 14 others that were detained yesterday, was given a 15 day term in detention pending further investigation, the case number is 4943/2008. The 14 is said to have been denied legal council at the public prosecutions office.

The group was presented to the public prosecution the same evening, they were denied access to lawyers, a natural right of all arrestees.

According to Ahmed abd al Gawad, a member of both April 6th and the Ghad party:

“From the reports we got from Al-Ramal Court in Alexandria, the detainees have been dealt with in a way which contradicts the constitution and Egyptian law,”

The charges are as follows:
Hindering the traffic

gathering of more than 5 people in a public space and assembling persons under the name of “6 April Movement”, using the internet and incitement for overthrow the regime and destabilizing the country.

incitement to demonstration through distribution of publications among citizens inviting them for civil disobedience.

The names of the 14 (plus Ahmed Maher) are as follows:

1- Khalid Adil
2- Mahinor Al Masri
3- Yousuf Sha'ban
4- Basim Fathi
5- Mustafa Mahir
7- Nur Al Din Subhi
8- Medhat Shakir
9- Mutasim Bellah Mohamed
10- Tarig Tito
11- Mohamed Mahmoud
12- Ahmed Nassar
13- Ahmed Afifi
14- ********* his name still unknown
15- Ahmed Mahir “Abducted this Afternoon”

According to the AFP 12 more activists were arrested today.

Developments will be followed and updates given as more information becomes available, especially about Ahmed Maher´s whereabouts.

UPDATE: Ahmed Maher recieved a 15 day-term, pending further investigation, and has been taken to Hadra prison in Alexandria, unlike the other 14, whom is being held at the infamous Burg al Arab, where Kareem Amer and Mo´sad Abu Fagr is being held, and where Beheiri and Marei among others have just served time. One might ask why Ahmed Maher is separated from the rest? There is conflicting reports of the whereabouts of the 14, according to the Hisham Mubarak Law Center , they are at Hadra prison.



Here is a 23 minute report from journeyman pictures, Egypt's Facebook Face Off aired on July 2nd, it´s made in the period between the April 6th and May 4th demos(a part is also made after that, including a second interview with Ahmed Maher after being subjugated to beatings at Lazoughly).

Ayman Nour not among the pardoned

The founder and former leader of al Ghad, Ayman Nour was not among the 1500 pardoned by the President as part of the customary celebrations of the national day, in comemmoration of the 1952 revolution, something that was roumered to be in the making. He is reported to be on a hungerstrike, in protest over the way his prison visitors were treated, during yesterday´s visit.

Nour is currently serving a five year sentence for forging signatures needed to apply for a party liscense. The verdict is seen by many as politically motivated, and being on trumped up charges. Nour´s been serving more than half his sentence, and was eligible for pardon for the first time. All options of appeal are already, tried, and the only avenue left is a pardon.

Ayman Nour no longer allowed to publish

Egypt´s higher administrative court issued a ruling stating that Ayman Nour will not be allowed to publish articles. according to a judicial source that AFP spoke to.

The distant second in the 2005 Presidential election , Ayman Nour of al Ghad party, in jail for two years serving a five years sentence on what many claim is a trumped up charge of forging signatures to complete the application of the Ghad Party to go official. One key witness changed his testimony during trial.

The verdict was an answer to an appeal from Nour whom were rejecting an appeal from Nur against a ruling handed down in January that included not being alloved recieving or sending letters.

At least he is allowed to write, and maybe do yoga.... do they think he will do as Sayyid Qutb and write a manifesto denouncing the government and the state of the country as authocratic and undemocratic(rather than Jahiliyya) or what?

UPDATE: Bush, democracy, and the WEF speech

Jeffrey Fleishman also writes about it, and adds:

Nour was on the minds Egyptians on Sunday, when President Bush, speaking in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, criticized Middle East governments for silencing their opponents: "Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," he said.

I for one could not bring myself to write about the lofty rhetoric from the leader of the free world this time, as i have been in the past, and apparently i wasn´t the only one, albeit for different reasons. If one should take anything that the father of the freedom agenda says seriously it´s surely not his speeches on democracy, it´s far more important to pay attention to what his administration fail to say. Speeking out clearly on behalf of human and political rights, regardless of whom it may involve, would have made people listen, but with a track record full of lofty language and empty words, more often neglected than not on the ground.

Perhaps democracy promotion has been pushed aside by more important security considerations in the post 9/11 world of the Bush administration, but the fact that many of the countries that Bush talked about very harshly in his speech, has been the best of allies when it comes to intelligence sharing and giving more than a helping hand to cater for renditions(even countries percieved as part of the axis of evil helped out, a small clue - they officially started a process of peace talks with their arch enemy today, with a post-islamist government as sponsor for the talks), is probably the most important reason why it´s very hard to be taken seriously on democracy promotion. One can not be both human rights violator,democracy trasher and at the same time promote democracy.

One appeal rejected as another begins

The appeal case of Ayman Nour, was turned down by the Supreme Administrative Court earlier today. Ayman Nour had stated health reasons (He suffers from diabetes and cardiac problems) for the appeal that had been refused before. He was originally sentenced to five years on forgery charges on Christmas eve 2005.

Ayman Nour the liberal Ghad Party opponent to President Mubarak in the first Presidential elections ever held in Egypt back in September 2005, was once the rising star of the Wafd, before leaving it due to infighting.

He started the Ghad Party, which obtained it´s party license in October 2004, and like no other party since the new Wafd first came about in 1978, it was full of promise and freshness, and above all a liberal party to cater for the ¨silent majority¨. But it did not take long before the trouble began. Yet again the endemic infighting that is one strong characteristic in almost every opposition party, showed it´s ugly face and in turn made it vulnerable to outside forces.

In January he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and arrested on the charges of having forged signatures for the registration procedure when applying for a party license,that was the beginning of this ordeal. After pressure from The U.S he was released and able to contend the Presidential elections in September, he also participated in the November-December parliamentary elections, and one of the enigmas of that election is how Ayman Nour could loose his seat in the Bab al Shaáriya constituency after being returned to parliament twice.

UPDATE:

It´s perhaps significant to point toward the finality of the situation, here summed up by Nour´s lawyer, Amir Salem:

"For the first time, I asked today for a presidential pardon for Ayman Nur," lawyer Amir Salem told AFP. "Frankly, that's the last card I can play. Now, everything is in the hands of the state."

JUDGE MOURAD AND THE 50 WEBSITES - PART II

In another sad, long and nightmarish story there is a continuation, just when one hoped for a full stop.

The story about the blogging judge who wrote a scientific study on laws governing internet and blogging, called ¨ " Scientific and Legal Assets for Blogs on the Internet¨ in a not so scientific way, should have been a footnote in the early history of Egyptian blogging and an open internet by now and the case put in the dustbin once and for all, but unfortunately that´s not the case.

The appeal case of Judge Abd al Fattah Mourad concerning the closing down of 50 websites, including newspapers,human rights organizations and blogs began yesterday.

During the Cairo Book fair in February 2007 it became known that Judge Mourad had written a book “The Scientific and Legal Fundamentals of Internet Blogs." that later proved to contain about 50 pages, directly copied from ¨Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet ” according to HR-Info, the organization that issued the annual report just two months prior to that.

The original trial began in March when the Alexandrian Judge Mourad filed a lawsuit against the Council of Cabinet and some ministries, asking them to shut down 21 websites, later on the 21 would expand to 50 websites. The reason for the Honourable Judge to demand this being that he saw these papers, human rights organizations and blogs as ¨terrorist¨ and as ¨tarnishing Egypt´s reputation and the Arab governments¨ This was finally dismissed by the administrative court on December 29th 2007, and that should have been the of this. But as one appeal is rejected, another one begins.