Today, July 22, 2009, seems to be a start of a series of crackdown on bloggers in Egypt, as 3 young bloggers were arrested separately. The first blogger is Ahmad Abu Khalil, who was taken from his home in the dawn.
State Security forces broke into Ahmad's house and confiscated his books. The State Security did not inform his family about the accusations against the son, or as to where he will be taken. However, he is most likely being held in Nasr City State Security headquarter.
Ahmad who blogs at Al- Bayareq (means: lanterns), identifies himself as an “Islamist”. And he used to write about his life.
The other two bloggers are Abdel Rahman Ayyash and Madgy Saad, who have been arrested at the Cairo Airport, since yesterday night. The two bloggers were coming back from a visit to Turkey. Ayyash is running “Abdel Rahman's Blog‘ , while Madgy Saad is writing at “Yalla Mesh Mohem” blog, (means: OK it doesn't matter).
Egyptian bloggers are circulating the arrests news via Twitter. Other than that, there is no further reports on this case.
An this comes a few days after the 13th prolongation of Mosa'ad Abu Fagr's detention.
Abu Fagr was arrested on 26 December 2007, but the court and D.A issued eight order of release to him, even though he was kept behind bars.
The Sinai activist and novelist Fagr has a blog called Wedna Ne3eesh (We Want to Live) where he writes about the demands of Bedouins of Sinai, expressing their life and seeking they citizenship rights.
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ANHRI: Continued Detenion Of Two Bloggers at Cairo airport.
Cairo on 23/7/2009
ANHRI declares that state security services are still detaining Madgy Saad , owner of the blogger “yalla mesh mohem ” and Abd El Rahman Ayyash owner of the blog “Al Ghareeb” , after their return form Turkey yesterday. The reason of detention is still not known.
ANHRI expresses worry about detaining arriving bloggers at the airport becoming a routine. This is the fourth blogger detention incident in less than one month; Wael Abbas wad detained on 30/6/2009 after arriving from Sweden for eight hours and his laptop was confiscated since then. On 18/7/2009 , Ahmed Salah , a blogger was detained for several hours and was not released except after scrutinizing his belongings and currently both bloggers Magdy and Ayyash are being detained for no reason.
Gamal Eid, ANHRI executive manager, states, “This is a new episode of the blatant violation program practiced by the security services, with absolute illegitimacy and with shameful consent of the prosecution, the only entity responsible of questioning police authorities about such encroachments and law breaking incidents.”
http://anhri.net/en/reports/2009/pr0723.shtml