April 6 youth detainees still in custody despite release order
By Sarah Carr
Activists call for the release of April 6 detainees.
CAIRO: Four members of a group of 14 young activists and journalists were released Wednesday, two days after a court ordered they be freed and a week after they were arrested in Alexandria.
It is expected that the remaining members of the April 6 Youth Movement detainees — the majority of whom are from Cairo — will be transferred to Cairo today and let go after release procedures are complete.
The group of 14, all in their early 20s, were singing patriotic songs and flying the Egyptian flag on the occasion of the anniversary of the July 23 revolution when they were arrested on Sidi Beshr beach in Alexandria.
A member of the group, Waleed Rashad, told Daily News Egypt last week that the officers who arrested the group objected to the kite and to their t-shirts on which were written ‘April 6 Youth Movement.’
One of the group members, Ahmed Maher, was arrested the following morning.
Maher, who was involved in organizing the April 6 strike on the social networking site Facebook, was previously detained twice.
On the last occasion he was kidnapped while driving in Cairo and allegedly tortured by state security investigations officers before being released without charge.
Activists and journalists yesterday staged a protest on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate calling for the release of the detained activists.
Journalists’ Syndicate head Makram Mohamed Ahmed emerged briefly from the syndicate in order to receive head of the National Council for Human Rights Boutros Boutros Ghali, who was speaking at a conference in the syndicate.
The two men were jostled by protestors on their way back into the syndicate. Neither of them acknowledged the protest.
Yesterday afternoon the fathers of two of the detained youths as well as activists gathered outside the public prosecutor’s office.
“We spoke to the assistant prosecutor general Adel El-Said and requested that they follow-up with the prison and Interior Ministry authorities in order to ensure that the remaining members of the group are actually released,” Deya El-Sawy, a member of the April 6 Youth Movement, told reporters.
“He was very receptive and promised us that he would do it,” El-Sawy continued.
April 6 Youth Movement activists allege that detainees were assaulted while in the custody of state security investigators.
They plan to present a complaint about their treatment to the public prosecutor’s office.
July 31st, 2008 | Category: April 6, Detainee, Egypt
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