CAIRO/MAHALLA EL KOBRA: Police detained 25 academics on Friday as they headed to Mahalla El-Kobra to show solidarity with those injured in deadly clashes there earlier this week.
We are being held and we are not being told why, psychiatrist Aida Seif Al-Dawla told AFP by telephone from a police checkpoint around 20 km from Mahalla.
They took some of our IDs and they confiscated the keys of one car traveling in the convoy, she said, adding that the convoy was surrounded by police.
We were going to meet with families of the injured; most of those traveling are doctors, Seif Al-Dawla said. The group was reportedly escorted back to Cairo.
Later on Friday, Director-General of Kefaya George Ishaq was released on LE 10,000 bail. Ishaq was arrested at his home Wednesday evening along with at least 50 other members of the group in the wake of the April 6 strike, which Kefaya participated in.
Violent riots rocked the industrial city on April 6 and Monday during which a 15-year-old boy died after being shot by police. Hundreds were injured and around 300 people arrested.
Reuters’ photographer Nasser Nouri was arrested early Friday. He managed to send a text message Friday morning from a police station saying he was held there.
“I haven’t heard from him since, Reuters Bureau chief Jonathan Wright told Daily News Egypt a little after 4 pm. “He is not answering his phone.
Wright couldn’t confirm whether Nouri was released or still held by police, but noted that there was “no obvious progress.
James Buck, an American freelance journalist was arrested on Thursday over his coverage of recent unrest. According to the Associated Press, he was released on Friday, but decided to stay in a police station to protest the arrest of his Egyptian translator, Mohamed Saleh Ahmed.
“I started a hunger strike and I will not leave without my translator, he said.
It was later reported that he was forced to leave the station and by press time he was on his way to Cairo.
Buck is a freelance journalist, photographer and graphic designer who recently contributed material to the Oakland Tribune in California. His work is also widely circulated among rights activists and strike organizers in Egypt.
Buck said police grabbed him Thursday evening while he was taking photographs of families on a hunger strike outside a prison.
Buck and his translator managed to get into a taxi, but police pulled them out, he said. They told him (the taxi driver) in Arabic that I m from the CIA.
“They wanted my camera. I said no…They tried to take it by force. I had to fall on the ground and hold my bag to my chest – I curled up in a ball so they tried to pull it away from me, Buck told AP.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to “conduct an impartial investigation into the police use of force against protestors in Mahalla.
“Police in riot gear used live ammunition and rubber bullets to suppress the protests against low wages and price hikes for basic goods, according to eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch.
A 15-year-old bystander was killed, apparently by police, and more than 100 people were wounded, including some who lost eyes after being shot with rubber-coated bullets.
Police detained several journalists trying to cover the protests, the organization said, describing the police’s use of force as “unnecessary lethal and excessive.
“The fact that some demonstrations turned violent does not give Egyptian police free license to beat or shoot protestors, said Joe Stork, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.
“Police have to uphold order, but they should use proper riot-control measures instead of indiscriminately attacking people or using disproportionate force.
The organization said in a statement that the sequence of violence elsewhere in the town is unclear.
“Protestors reportedly threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, injuring five policemen in Mahalla’s main square later on Sunday night, and burned two schools and other property, said HRW. An eyewitness told the organization that demonstrators set car tires on fire and had looted a restaurant owned by a member of the ruling National Democratic Party
The UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials states that “law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty, said HRW. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms call upon law enforcement officials to apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force, to use force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life, it added. – Agencies, with additional reporting by Daily News Egypt reporters Sarah El Sirgany and Sarah Carr
