Egypt: Bargaining Bloggers to stop opposing the Government

fares-31.jpgYou will be behind the sun” was the expression used by the Dean Abdul Hadi, General Inspector of State Security at Fayoum (Egyptian Province), while he was interrogating the Egyptian blogger AbdelRahman Fares last Friday, 25 September, 2009, who blogs at Lesany Hoa elKalm (My Pen Is My Tongue).

Hours before this, major Tamer Adel also questioned Fares about his relation with the strike that will take place on October 2009 -which fares did not know even about-, the Muslim Brotherhood and El-Ghad political party. During this interrogation, major Tamer offered Fares a political position in the National Democratic Party (ruling party) and promised him to be promoted inside the party, in exchange for quitting any other work within the civil society. An offer that Fares refused.

Fares mentioned during a phone call that AbdulHadi asked him several questions about his blog, as well as treating him badly and threatening him to be arrested and to be “behind the sun”, which is an Egyptian expression used to highly threaten someone with jail.

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