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Tuesday, 9 May 2006
As you may have heard by now, Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah has been arrested alongside 10 others while demonstrating in support of the independence of the Judiciary in Egypt
and the release of previous demonstrators who were detained 2 weeks
earlier. The Police entrapped them, cordoning off their peaceful
protest and then proceeded to handpick the demonstrators that they
wanted to detain, beat them, and then arrested them.
Alaa and those arrested with him are now arrested for 15 days "pending investigation",
which could be renewed indefinitely if the state so wishes. He and the
men were sent to the infamous Torah Prison and the girls to the Qanatir
prison for the duration. This makes them hardly safe, because stuff
that goes on in Egyptian prisons on the hands of the jailors: beatings,
sexual assaults, torture of all kinds.
Currently there are about 48 detained,
6 of them are bloggers, and 3 of them are women. The best known is
Alaa, which makes him the posterboy of this campaign - but getting them
out is equally as important. Egypt
has fewer than 830 bloggers all in all, 60 of whom are political and
less than 30 are politically active. Now 6 of those are in jail - 20%
of all politically active Egyptian bloggers - and amongst them one of Egypt's most highly profiled one.
This
is by no means a co-incidence. Government agents handpicked people to
arrest from amongst the protesters. They have been wanting to get Alaa
for a long time now, precisely because he is high profile, and because
he helps organizes the protests and spread the information through the
blog aggregator he runs (www.manalaa.net). With Alaa gone, Aggregator
could shut down without his maintenance and other bloggers could get
too scared to be active and find no way to organize or reach one other.
It's of vital importance that he gets released ASAP.
Alaa
is a secular democracy activist, and a tireless advocate of freedom,
free speech and human rights. He organizes demonstrations and engages
in protests against all kinds of injustices in Egypt and is the winner of the international Best of the Blogs award from Reporters Without Borders last December.
Alaa was arrested while protesting to support Egypt’s Judges fight for independence. 2 weeks earlier he had organized a “National Unity” protest to show solidarity with Egypt’s
Christians who suffered a sectarian attack on 3 churches on Good
Friday. Before that he was one of the few voices that urged calm and
peaceful dialogue while the cartoon crisis was hitting its peak. He is
a desperately needed voice of moderation and democracy in Egypt,
and one of the few flickers of hope in a country whose future seems
mire between the crushing rule of the regime and the fanaticism of the
Islamist opposition.
And now Alaa
needs your help. We have started an e-mail campaign to the Egyptian
embassies and the US State Department in order to push for his release,
and have started protests in front of the Egyptian embassy and consulates in the US for his release. We will also hold protests in France, Italy and Gemany. We could use your help in getting the word out and sending them an e-mail demanding his release.
Addresses for the Egyptian embassies in the US and Canada are available here, templates for e-mails to be sent to the embassies here, and the contact information for the person to e-mail in the US state department is here.
If you are a journalist or know one, help us spread the word by writing
about this or demanding your local newspaper write about this. If you
have a blog or a website and would like to raise awareness about this
issue, banners for the Free Alaa campaign can be found here and here. We could use any help we can get, so if you have any ideas or ways to help us, please do.
All the best,
The Sandmonkey
Also posted at: http://freealaa.blogspot.com/
May 10th, 2006 at 12:48 am
[...] The Egyptian authorities have been conducting a serious crackdown on bloggers (along with other dissidents who displease them). I haven’t read Alaa’s blog, but I read the Egyptian Sandmonkey’s regularly. Here’s what he has to say [emphasis mine]: Currently there are about 48 detained, 6 of them are bloggers, and 3 of them are women. The best known is Alaa, which makes him the posterboy of this campaign - but getting them out is equally as important. Egypt has fewer than 830 bloggers all in all, 60 of whom are political and less than 30 are politically active. Now 6 of those are in jail - 20% of all politically active Egyptian bloggers - and amongst them one of Egypt’s most highly profiled one…. [...]
May 10th, 2006 at 2:55 am
Hey SM,
I’ve posted this on the ‘Free Alaa’ blog, but I wanted to bring it up here also. Freedom for Egyptians is reporting that the number of people detained by the government during protests in the last two weeks is around 100. We should really attempt, as best we can, to assemble a list of those who are detained.
May 10th, 2006 at 4:39 am
This site has a list of detainees:
http://elijahzarwan.net/blog/?p=108
May 10th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Sorry SM. I linked to you on this a couple of days back & forgot to say. Didn’t think you’d mind.
May 10th, 2006 at 9:25 am
This is shameful!
Couple of Canadian bloggers are gonna write to the Egyptian Embassy here in Ottawa and I hope it helps as well.
FREEDOM FOR ALAA
May 10th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Dear Sam,
In case any Belgians read these comments, you should be able to contact the Egyptian Embassy in Brussels:
EGYPTIAN EMBASSY
AV. DE L URUGUAY / URUGUAYLAAN, 19 1000 BRUSSELS, Belgium
fax: +32(0)2/675.58.88
e-mail: embassy.egypt@skynet.be
I’ll write an e-mail myself, and I’ve incorporated this post in an e-mail I’m forwarding to my contacts.
Kind regards, and I hope he’ll get out soon.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Go Canada!
May 10th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Manal, Alaa’s wife, managed to see him today at the prison, and we will put up a blogpost written in prison in a little while.
I am using the Del.icio.us tag “Manalaa.net” to keep track of all the posts and web pages on the issue: http://del.icio.us/tag/Manalaa.net
After the BBC, and on the night of Mubarak’s arrival in Germany, we are beggining to reach the German MSM.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Manal, Alaa’s wife, managed to see him today at the prison, and we will put up a blogpost written in prison in a little while.
I am using the Del.icio.us tag “Manalaa.net” to keep track of all the posts and web pages on the issue: http://del.icio.us/tag/Manalaa.net
After the BBC, and on the night of Mubarak’s arrival in Germany, we are beggining to reach the German MSM.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
[...] Sandaben har naturligvis mere. [...]
May 10th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Alaa managed to blog from his prison. We are also starting a Wikipedia entry on him. Feel urged to contribute.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:20 am
[...] Egyptian blogger beaten, jailed By StatGuy Three days ago Egyptian blogger and political activist Alaa Abdel Fatah was arrested with ten others who were peacefully demonstrating in support of judicial independence and the release of other demonstrators who had been arrested two weeks previously. Alaa and the others were singled out by the police, beaten, and taken into custody. They have now been officially detained for fifteen days "pending investigation", which status can be renewed indefinitely at the discretion of the state. He and the men were sent to the infamous Torah Prison and the girls to the Qanatir prison for the duration. This makes them hardly safe, because stuff that goes on in Egyptian prisons on the hands of the jailors: beatings, sexual assaults, torture of all kinds. [...]
May 11th, 2006 at 6:52 am
[...] Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard makes the call to Internet arms. And via Sandmonkey he has some details on Alaa’s arrest: As you may have heard by now, Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah has been arrested alongside 10 others while demonstrating in support of the independence of the Judiciary in Egypt and the release of previous demonstrators who were detained 2 weeks earlier. The Police entrapped them, cordoning off their peaceful protest and then proceeded to handpick the demonstrators that they wanted to detain, beat them, and then arrested them. … This is by no means a co-incidence. Government agents handpicked people to arrest from amongst the protesters. They have been wanting to get Alaa for a long time now, precisely because he is high profile, and because he helps organizes the protests and spread the information through the blog aggregator he runs (www.manalaa.net). [...]
May 11th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Egyptian meltdown
Egyptian blogger Alaa is jailed, the Egyptian government starts watching Sandmonkey, and forces crack down on pro-reform demonstrations.
I’m worried for Sandmonkey. Lots of details and pictures of the demonstration crackdown at his site. Jus…
May 12th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Free Droubi would like to echo its support for Free Alaa!!
May 12th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Free Droubi would like to echo its support for Free Alaa!! (Correction of earlier post’s link)
May 12th, 2006 at 6:01 am
The petition has just hit the US via Canadian and Israeli bloggers who are circulating it–I just forwarded the petition to all of my list and asked them to pass it on. Please tell him the World knows and we are doing what we can to support him, to pressure our governments to ask Egypt to release him and his compatriots.
May 13th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
[...] The Egyptian Sandmonkey describes Alaa as a . . . secular democracy activist, and a tireless advocate of freedom, free speech and human rights. He organizes demonstrations and engages in protests against all kinds of injustices in Egypt and is the winner of the international Best of the Blogs award from Reporters Without Borders last December. Alaa was arrested while protesting to support Egypt’s Judges fight for independence. 2 weeks earlier he had organized a “National Unity” protest to show solidarity with Egypt’s Christians who suffered a sectarian attack on 3 churches on Good Friday. Before that he was one of the few voices that urged calm and peaceful dialogue while the cartoon crisis was hitting its peak. He is a desperately needed voice of moderation and democracy in Egypt, and one of the few flickers of hope in a country whose future seems mire between the crushing rule of the regime and the fanaticism of the Islamist opposition.; [...]
May 14th, 2006 at 3:13 am
[...] Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah has been arrested, and there are currently ten other bloggers in prison in the country. Campaigns to help him and the other bloggers have been launched, including one which has a form you can fill in that will send a letter of protest to the right people. Sandmonkey has the details. Mental Acrobatics suggest a reworking of “When Israel Was in Egypt’s Land” which sends me off on a Paul Robeson tangent for some reason. [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
[...] Help us Free Alaa - by Sandmonkey Google Bombing Action for Alaa - by Sabbah [...]
September 10th, 2006 at 9:02 am
This is shameful!
October 19th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
الحرية لكل المناضلين
February 26th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
[...] [It turns out The telegraph got it wrong. Sandmonkey is still blogging. A year ago he wrote Help us Free Alaa. That’s probably who was jailed.] [...]
March 13th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I’m sorry to say this, but I’m afraid tht the only option for the safety of those who care about the future of Egypt is to emigrate. Come to the USA, and lobby for the cutoff of foreign-aid funds to dictatorships.
-jcr
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Why should Canadians care about this sandmonkey?
Let the devil figure out the middle east’s quest for freedom. It is a goat rodeo at best..it can not ever be resolved.
Throw stones and lop off heads…
June 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’ll do my part by not visiting Egypt.
SK
June 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
[...] displease them). I haven’t read Alaa’s blog, but I read the Egyptian Sandmonkey’s regularly. Here’s what he has to say [emphasis mine]: Currently there are about 48 detained, 6 of them are bloggers, and 3 of them are [...]
June 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
[...] displease them). I haven’t read Alaa’s blog, but I read the Egyptian Sandmonkey’s regularly. Here’s what he has to say [emphasis mine]: Currently there are about 48 detained, 6 of them are bloggers, and 3 of them are [...]