By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: More than 1,000 have been detained in Cairo since Jan. 25 protests, including 166 released on Thursday afternoon, civil rights lawyers said.
Numbers of detainees remain unconfirmed in other governorates with 65 in Alexandria and 25 in Suez confirmed. Prosecution ordered them to remain in custody for 15 days pending investigations, lawyers said at a press conference at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center Thursday.
In Mansoura, there are 91 detained and nine in Assuit and they still haven’t been presented to the prosecution.
Hundred of protestors were injured, but lawyers couldn’t specify the number.
The 166 defendants were charged with many crimes including illegal gathering, vandalizing 18 state security trucks, attacking police officers and causing the death of a riot policeman, Ahmed Aziz.
Lawyer at Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Ahmed Seif Al-Islam strongly denied media reports that the defendants were charged with sedition.
“The statements that defendants were accused with sedition are completely untrue,” Seif Al-Islam said.
An unidentified number of detainees were charged on Jan. 26 with arms possession and shooting other protesters with rubber bullets.
“Why would protestors shoot each-other with rubber bullets during a protest? This makes no sense at all,” human rights lawyer Tarek Al Awady said in dismay.
The lawyers said that they viewed the official coronary report issued by the hospital for Aziz which stated that Aziz had no injuries in his body except for one bruise above his right eye-lid.
They added that the riot policeman who took Aziz to the hospital said in his testimony that he had hypotension during the protests and he and Aziz fell to the ground.
Lawyers said that this is evidence that Aziz died of natural causes. They also speculated it might be a result of being ordered to stand all day in the sun by his superiors in order to control the protests.
The lawyers said that three protestors died on Tuesday and Wednesday, refuting reports about the death of two more.
The lawyers issued a statement saying that civilian Tamer Amin had 136 bruises all around his body as a result of rubber bullets fired on him on Jan 25.
The lawyers added that 6 rubber bullets remained in his body.
